For example, in the e-poem “The Mermaid” (a digital reworking of William Butler Yeats’ poem of the same name) Alis Yung transmogrifies the work of Yeats into an altogether different product. Upon clicking the plain hyperlink in a gray environment (shown below),
simply titled “Mermaid” the viewer is introduced to a small window (resembling a pop-up) in which the first line of the poem “A mermaid found a swimming lad” set behind floating blocks of what look to be tiny white letters. All of this takes place in a dark magenta box where a sense of complacent passion lingers. It is not until the viewer actually begins to mouse their cursor that something begins to happen to the illegible blocks of words. As the mouse passes across the screen and alights on the blurbs they begin to perform a variety of motions. In a dizzying rapidity the lines are suddenly magnified and sometimes flipped upside-down or backwards, always with a fluttering effect like that of a pounding heart (see below). 
Because of these elements it is somewhat close to impossible to make sense of the crazy words, which are in actual fact the rest of Yeats’ six-line poem. Overall, the end product Yung’s interpretation of “The Mermaid” is a head-ache from trying to decipher the elusive lines and a feeling of irritation that something is either wrong with one’s mouse or browser.Although this is the case when viewing much of digital literature (meaning that much of what one finds in e-poetry is nothing more than the unintelligible jabber of sights sounds and hyperlinks) one must not be content with the idea that a sense of nausea and annoyance is the author’s original goal. In producing the work, Yung puts forth a few interesting ideas about Yeats’ poem. It is clearly noticed that “The Mermaid” is very much a poem about love, or more accurately, passion. Yung demonstrates this in the color of the background, a dull magenta possibly indicating the lingering ardor of a lost love. Furthermore, the intangible lines of the e-poem plant the idea that love is an ultimately unattainable object which constantly slips through the fingers of those pursuing it. In the work, a mermaid finds a “lad” (probably in all speculation a ruggedly fit and handsome young man) and forcefully abducts him as her lover to the bottom of the sea where he meets his cruel end. The very poem exercises this view of “cruel” love while Yung’s flickering words serve to torture the viewer as they attempt to ascertain the body of the work. Even when one is capable of pinning down the trembling for a moment, they quickly fade back into the gloom of the window. This paints a picture of the pounding hearts of love (shared by the enamored mermaid and the frightened lad) hurriedly hammering before settling back into the mists of the sea. Moreover, the remorseless attitude of the mermaid (as it is never told whether or not she laments her lost lover) is adequately captured in the way that the e-poem’s ruthlessness leaves a bitter taste in the viewers mind. It is in this way that the aspects of Yeats’ poem are captured and expounded upon by the artful renderings of Yung’s “Mermaid. However sore Yung’s use of wavering makes the viewer’s eyes; her interpretation serves to reinforce ideas and elements contained within the poem.
In keeping with the Yeats/Yung idea of love (and in a sense life) plummeting into a watery abyss, another example of the symbiociation contained in electronic literature is found in Ingrid Ankerson’s e-poem “Sinking.” Oddly enough Ankerson’s poem shares more than just a common theme with Yung’s “Mermaid” in that the launch screen is identical to that of “The Mermaid.” However, unlike the dull gray of Yung’s work, the launch screen of “Sinking” (shown right)
is colored a deep blue, symbolizing the altogether watery nature of the work itself. Upon clicking the hyperlink a small pop-up like box (similar to that of “Mermaid”) appears and begins to play. In this work clicking on the link is the extent of a viewer’s interaction with the poem. It does not contain the shaky letters of Yung’s product or the multiple paths of other electronic works but instead runs much like a movie clip: All one has to do is press play. This however does not alleviate by any measure the relative ease (or difficulty) one has in reading the lines of the poem. Indeed, one has to pay close attention to the words of the poem as they do not share a common existence but rather inconsistently fade in and out of being as the poem progresses. Though for the most part easy to watch, it does take the viewer more than one play-through to fully appreciate the poem as a whole. Furthermore, like many works of digital poetry, “Sinking” incorporates music a vital element in its composition. From when the words start appearing across the screen till about a minute after they end, one’s ears are enveloped by a rhythmic ambience reminiscent of calm waters and mystical lochs. This noise (for it cannot rightly be called music) adds a tone of melancholy regret to the work as a whole and thereby serves to underscore the dark nature the end of the poem reveals.In addition to the quickly fading lines and attitude of sadness as captured by the ambient noise, the e-poem also integrates a self-scrolling pan feature which lies in the background: an oil-painting like seascape which stretches to each border of the browser window. As the work plays, a spectrum is revealed; the background starts off bright and fresh yet slowly grows darker and darker until a blue so deep it appears black ends the work. This adds yet another layer of meaning to the words of the poem. For just as the mournful ambient noise casts a dull view of the work as a whole, the slow fade to black seen in the poem’s background serves to highlight the stages in which the speaker of the poem writes. The poem begins with the speaker recollecting how she learnt to swim as a child and ends with her comparing her inability to thrive in life with her inability to swim in water. For this reason, the background of the poem begins with the bright, almost whiteness of new life as is seen by the blank bar atop the screen before the actual background begins (see below).
This white bar, which only exists at the beginning and end of the work is a picture of the author’s view on the span of time before and after life in that before life begins (i.e. the life here being the poem) nothing is known, one is pure and nonexistent. With the white bar also following at the end of the work (when it appears that the speaker kills herself by cutting her wrists) the author’s outlook on the afterlife are plainly evident in that she believes that even though life continues (the ambient noise carries on even after the poem’s end) the individual herself is removed to the same state she was before her life began (that is, one of innocence and purity). Due to these aspects of the e-poem, one gains a greater understanding of what Ankerson is trying to conceptualize. Were it written down on paper, “Sinking” would carry just as strong a message about the futility of merely getting by (as opposed to thriving). However, it would lose a vast amount of meaning in that the reader would surely not be able to grasp the author’s views of pre-life and death by printed words but would instead focus on the structure of the words themselves.
And this is perhaps the only area in which digital literature holds any weight as a meaningful or useful tool of artistic expression. Having to trudge through the often cumbersome and galling elements found in e-poetry can somewhat mask the underlying ideas and motives constructed by its authors. But that is what literature is all about. That is what art is all about. One must be willing set aside their preformed constructs of what art is and analyze a subject (be it an e-poem, a painting or an interpretive dance) on an individualized case-to-case basis. I admit that this is largely my failing when it comes to e-poetry, as I find myself so bored and apathetic to the works themselves that I cease to try and understand them for what they are; what they were created to be. For this reason it is important to understand that although something seems foreign and unintelligible to one, it must not be utterly dismissed as garbage or a waste of time. Instead it must be critically analyzed with the hope that such analysis will bring about not only a better understanding of the subject but also a better appreciation.
