@chrisdtc101
For this week’s blog post I chose to focus on the electronic literature piece “Shy Boy” by Thom Swiss. “Shy Boy” is a poem written to be read and experienced on a computer rather than just as text on a piece of paper. In “Shy Boy” the words appear on the screen in intervals, with one line appearing every few seconds. The screen does not just show the words though. It also has varying shades of gray and black around the lines of the poem with lines often appearing at different places on top of or around the shaded patches on the screen. Every few lines, the words disappear off the screen in some way. For example, when the line “He’s melting” appears on the screen, the words fall from their place to the bottom of the screen while also slowly fading or “melting” away from view. There is also music faintly playing in the background while we read the poem. This music allows us to focus more than one of our senses on the piece of literature. Not only are we reading the words that appear on the screen, but we’re also listening to the music that accompanies it.
Katherine Hayles says that “Unlike a print book, electronic literature literally cannot be accessed without running code” (Hayles 1). In the case of “Shy Boy”, we would be unable to experience all parts of the poem without the running code that allows the words to appear and then disappear and that lets us hear music play while we follow along with the poem. Because “Shy Boy” can only be fully accessed with running code, it is considered electronic literature and not print.