My book Digital Friends 1 describes itself as containing "small poems" as opposed to specific kinds of small poems, such as haiku or sijo. This description is intentional as it theoretically allows me to break the rules (such as they are) of how to write specific types of small poems, without causing an outcry among critics that I have bastardized the appropriate poetic form. I say "theoretically" because I would not be surprised at the existence of a critic somewhere who claims that the phrase "small poem" itself represents a poetic form, and that I have broken the rules regarding its construction either willingly or through negligence, resulting in an outpouring of invective; and I qualify my mention of the word "rules" with the phrase "such as they are" because sources differ as to what those rules actually are.

As an example of sources differing as to the rules of a poetic form, consider the case of the haiku. The haiku is a Japanese form which is said by some to consist of three lines with five syllables in the first and last lines and seven syllables in the middle line. Others dispute this rule, pointing out that the Japanese count morae - i.e. sounds, known as "on" - rather than syllables in the English sense, and hence when a haiku written in Japanese gets translated into English, the syllable/morae counts no longer match. To me, this argument is irrelevant, as it ignores the fact that even if there were a one-to-one correspondence between the way that morae are formed and the way that syllables are formed, the fact is that there is no one-to-one correspondence on the sound length of the pronunciation of a Japanese word to that of an English word - the Japanese word "fueki" (不易), for example, is translated by google as "immutable." Three - counting syllables the English way - does not equal four. This difference of syllable count of course applies to all languages; hence translating a haiku written in a non-English language to English can easily result in the rule being "broken." Yet surely a haiku does not cease to be a haiku as a result of translation? If such were the case, then haiku could ONLY be written in Japanese, and similar poems written in English should therefore be described using a separate form; and the same would apply to French, Portuguese, Tagalog, and on and on. One easy way around this conundrum is to maintain the legitimacy of the "rule" and then state that haiku are "traditionally" written to follow the rule, but that in practice breaking the rule in "modern" haiku has become acceptable. In general this same type of workaround is used for many "rules" regarding many poetic forms - "modern" poems can relax the rules.

All right then - so I have classified my poems in Digital Friends 1 as being "small poems," which is not a recognized type of poetic form. One of the purposes of writing a poem in a poetic form is to add an extra layer of interpretation to it. Without a form, then, is there any guidance to the reader as to how to better appreciate the poems?

Yes, there is - namely, this essay.

There are a number of conventions I have used in the writing of these poems : the expectation of a "cut," similar to a kireji in haiku; a lack of punctuation; multiple meanings for words; the layout of the words; the overlaying of each poem onto a graphical background; and the inclusion of a QR code along with the poem. These conventions do not necessarily apply to each and every poem (except for the QR code), but they do apply to most of them, and they work together, influencing one another. I'll bounce around between these concepts to explain what I mean.

A kireji is a word which introduces a break between two ideas. Those two ideas are then sometimes compared to one another, often in the sense of equivalence. For example, take this poem from Digital Friends 1 :

o veteran star-stuffed
red admiral
draw me in flutters
flag-masted

I identify three possible kireji in this poem : "admiral," "in," and "flutters." Which one(s) you choose to identify as kireji affects your interpretation of the poem. If I choose only the first word, then I could "read" the poem as follows :

O veteran star-stuffed red admiral! Draw me in flutters flag-masted.

Here there is no comparison of ideas; instead the interpretation consists of an exclamation followed by a command.

If I choose both the first and second word, the poem becomes :

O veteran star-stuffed red admiral! Draw me in!
Flutters flag-masted.

Here there is an exclamation, followed by a command, and then an implied comparison between "flutters" and the previous joining of the exclamation and the command. Note that the absence of punctuation is what allows both interpretations to be possible - in essence, the choice of kireji on the part of the reader allows the reader to mentally introduce punctuation where needed. This flexibility is intentional - it allows the reader to interpret the poem differently at different times, allowing multiple readings of the book to be beneficial, as the reader is unlikely to process all possible interpretations the first time the book is read. This also slows down the reading process, as it takes more time for the reader to make sense of what the poem can convey, which I consider to be a trait beneficial to the mind. It reinforces the tendency to slow down and not rush to judgment about what is being encountered, and to think more carefully about what one sees.

This particular breaking of the poem into two sections brings in the question of vocabulary. In the group of words "Flutters flag-masted," "flutter" could be a verb, in which case the subject is implied and the verb is in the present tense singular; then the question becomes "what is the subject?" On the other hand, if "flutter" is a noun, then the phrase contains a plural subject with the verb "to be" implied; in other words, the phrase contains a null copula. In either case, the meaning of the word "flutter" is worth looking up.

Here the QR code comes in handy. If you scan the code with a smart phone, or alternately go to the web site spelled out beneath the code, you will see a blog entry I have written which gives more information about the poem - including a link to the Oxford English Dictionary's entry for the word 'flutter.' Selecting the link shows that the OED recognizes ten different noun meanings for the word (as well as 12 verbal meanings). The meanings listed are : "a fluttering; a burst; abnormal rapid muscular contractions; abnormal oscillations of part of an aircraft; rapid tonguing in playing wind instruments; rapid fluctuation in pitch or loudness of a sound; a state of tremulous excitement; a disordered state; ostentatious display; and an exciting venture at betting or cards." Now the reader can compare those meanings with his particular reading of the poem, and decide which, if any, make sense, providing new insight into what he can take away from the poem, with the risk of course that he may be overwhelmed with the number of choices. Now imagine doing this for multiple words in the poem, and the intractability of including all of these permutations in the text of the book becomes apparent; hence the utility of the QR code. Not only does use of the code offload the definitions from the text of the book; it also allows for future changes in word meaning to be reachable by the reader, without requiring new book editions. Language evolves, particularly with regards to slang, and this technological marriage of QR codes within traditional text allows some separation of concerns - if you will allow me to apply a concept from software development to the realm of design in general - in the process of allowing the interpretation of the poem to evolve along with the language in which it is written. In other words, modifications in one area - the evolution of language - do not require modifications in another area - the book itself - due to the use of the QR code to separate those two activities.

Another way to influence which meaning of the word to consider is to note the graphic behind the poem. In this case, the graphic is as follows :

Image generated through AI by the author - source is on the blog page

Butterflies are quite prominent, which brings to mind the verbal definition of 'flutter' as "to move or flap the wings rapidly." This might cause the reader to consider a use of kireji which allows a verbal use of the word. To reiterate that reading :

O veteran star-stuffed red admiral! Draw me in!
Flutters flag-masted.

So what flutters? The butterfly? But there is no butterfly in the poem; just in the image behind the poem. This consideration raises the possibility that what we might interpret here is not the poem and the image separately, but rather the combination of the two as one work of art. In this case, this particular reading of the poem will not make sense without the accompanying image. Is this kosher? Some have thought so; Marvin Sackner's definition of a "visual poem" implies this very conclusion.

Another possibility is to consider that the woman herself is what is fluttering. This interpretation utilizes the meaning of flutter which is "to tremble with excitement," and blends in well with the existence of the exclamation and the command - the woman, besides "fluttering," is the one exclaiming and commanding. In this case the butterfly is representative of her inner feelings, which incidentally works well with the historical use of the butterfly image to symbolize the human soul. Indeed, the ancient Greek word psyche, meaning "soul," is also one of the Greek words for "butterfly."

There is more here to play with. If the reader looks closely at the butterfly image, and does a google image search for butterflies, he may realize that the species depicted is known as a "red admiral." So if we play with the current interpretation, the speaker in the poem could be addressing one such butterfly, rather than the more common meaning of admiral as a senior naval officer. Or - perhaps both. A military motif runs through the poem if one considers the admiral in this sense, and the phrase "flag-masted" could invoke the image of a flag on a ship's mast, "fluttering" in the breeze, just as the woman's soul "flutters"; and the word "veteran" in the poem appears to describe the admiral. This reading is given further support through the blog post linked to the QR code - another item supplied by that page is a way to link to various NFTs (non-fungible tokens) which I have created for the image. Those knowledgeable about NFTs can look closer and note that they were minted on veteran's day, 2024 - at least, according to central standard time.

In allowing various simultaneous readings of the poem dependent upon which kireji are chosen, a question arises : how should an author, following these conventions, actually write down the poem? Writing the words down in a particular way, i.e. broken apart into various lines, implies a preferred interpretation of the poem to those unfamiliar with the conventions. For example, the writing of the poem which I employed :

o veteran star-stuffed
red admiral
draw me in flutters
flag-masted

implies a preference for the sole kireji being the word "admiral" (in my opinion) and the resulting reading being :

O veteran star-stuffed red admiral! Draw me in flutters flag-masted!

I have no desire to imply that this is the preferred way to read the poem - but of course I have to write the words down in some way. In this case I simply choose a way of writing the words such that other aspects of poetry - namely the poetic techniques used - get emphasized. Here I make use of the techniques of alliteration and assonance. I allow the 'st' alliteration - the use of those repeated consonantal sounds - to stand out by placing them at the end of the first line : "star-stuffed" and the last line : "flag-masted," which also serves to allow the two hyphenated phrases in the poem to mirror one another, at the expense of separating the 'fl' alliteration between the last two lines : "flutters / flag-masted." Then the assonance - the use of repeated vowel sounds - ends up following this pattern : "short e, a u (veteran star-stuffed) / short e, a, u (red admiral) [the last 'a' is pronounced like a 'u'] / short a, u (draw me in flutters) / short a (flag-masted)." This format also allows the poetic meter of the first line - one dactyl followed by a trochee (o VET-er-an STAR-stuffed) to match that of the third line (DRAW-me-in FLUT-ters), i.e. DA-da-da DA-da, and the poetic meter of the second line - an unstressed syllable followed by a dactyl (red AD-mir-al) to loosely match that of the fourth line - an unstressed syllable followed by a trochee (flag MAST-ed). I feel that this combination of breaks between the lines allows these poetic techniques to stand out in an optimal way, and thus this is the way that the poem is laid out.

There's a higher concept behind the use of the QR codes in the book which I should highlight, and that is the integration of technology with the contents of the book.

There is a group of Web3 enthusiasts and authors known as the PageDAO - the purpose of this group is to enhance the publication of literature through the use of blockchain-based technology. "Web3" is shorthand for this type of technology. I mention them because I plan to eventually publish the book in which this essay appears through their platform, as well as through traditional publishing avenues. Indeed, you may be reading this essay after having purchased the book through PageDAO, in which case you are already familiar with it. You can learn more about it in this essay. Currently I am a member of this organization, and various thoughts have come to my mind during the process of writing Digital Friends 1 which could relate to the activities of PageDAO, namely in regards to software which could partly automate the creation of poetry books similar to the one I have just mentioned.

The creation of this type of book involves several tedious steps which could be automated. The steps can be summarized as follows :

  1. retrieve a daily list of words and constraints on the use of those words from various social media sites
  2. write a poem using some of those words while following some of those constraints
  3. look up information in the Oxford English Dictionary listing the meanings of the words in the poem
  4. create a graphic to accompany the poem
  5. blend the poem and graphic together
  6. create at least one NFT of the poem/graphic combination. This step establishes both authenticity and provenance, which can be used as evidence that I actually wrote the poem as opposed to plagiarizing it.
  7. create a blog page for the poem
  8. populate the blog page with the poem/graphic combination, links to the OED meanings of the words, links to the NFT(s), and links to the location where the book in which the poem will appear and be pre-ordered or purchased
  9. create a QR code pointing to the blog page
  10. modify the manuscript of the book by adding the poem/image, the QR code, and a link to the blog page (i.e. the same location to which the QR code points) for the benefit of readers who may not own a smart phone to scan the code
  11. advertise the poem/graphic combination and book by sharing appropriate images and links on social media accounts. If the poem is written and NFT created on the same day as the beginning of this workflow, include posts to the social media accounts which provided the words and constraints used during the writing of the poem
  12. include links to those advertisement-like posts on the blog page so that potential purchasers of the NFT(s) on the page can get a sense of the ability to re-sell the NFT in the future, using the amount of advertising as a proxy for the number of people aware of the book's existence

Of the above steps, writing the poem, creating the graphic, and blending the poem and graphic together are the steps which involve creativity on the part of the writer. All of the other steps are essentially busy-work, and assuming that PageDAO provides an editor for actually creating the book I can imagine a poetry writer using the editor to automate all of the other steps by simply clicking a button after the poem is written and graphic is generated.

To be clear, the above workflow is not (at the moment that I write this) on any list of "features to implement" within utilities being worked on by the PageDAO; indeed, the other members of the PageDAO are not even aware of it. Their awareness of it will of course come into existence as soon as I publish this essay and then inform them about it, so by the time you read this elements of the above capabilities may be in the works, though of course I make no promises. My point however, in mentioning this putative workflow, is that many such workflows are possible in the blending of technology with traditional book publishing, and those which involve the use of blockchain technology will very likely become available through PageDAO at some point in the future. If you are a poet who enjoys writing small poems, and also want to experiment with new forms of publication to reach a larger audience, keep an eye on PageDAO and other similar organizations which are likely to crop up as Web3 becomes more mainstream.

Note : this essay will appear in my book Digital Friends 1, which can be purchased here.

Sources :

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Parsard, Kyle. 2016. Null copula. Yale Grammatical Diversity Project: English in North America. (Available online at http://ygdp.yale.edu/phenomena/null-copula. Accessed on 2024-12-05). Updated by Jim Wood (2017) and Katie Martin (2018)

https://frogpoet.github.io/oddwritings/digital_friends/Laura.htm, accessed 2024-12-05

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