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A JavaScript Poem Shuffler

July 18, 2020

creativity, defamiliarization, javascript, meaning, poetry, programming

As I’ve mentioned many times on the blog, meaning is a very fluid concept in literature. This fact inspired me to see what happens when we completely distort the author’s original intention, while still maintaining some minimal cohesion. This JavaScript poem shuffler was the result.

As the name perhaps implies, my JavaScript poem shuffler takes a poem and randomly reorganizes its lines.

Now, you might have two questions about this:

Doesn’t that render the poem meaningless?
Why should we care?

Amazingly, both these questions have the same answer, as we’ll see in more detail. Briefly, let me just say that this little coding exercise also provides us with excellent teaching material in terms of affective power and, indeed, the creation of meaning in literature.

JavaScript Poem Shuffler — Apparently chaotic patterns can still hold meaning – if they are predicated on **affect**. This JavaScript poem shuffler is a good example of this

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Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person”: an Example of Post-Autonomous Fiction

July 12, 2020

Criticism, Writing

guest post, Igor Livramento, Kristen Roupenian, literature, narrative, post-autonomous, writing

Today’s post offers an example of post-autonomous fiction, focusing on Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person”. The article is authored by Igor da Silva Livramento. He’s a fellow academic from UFSC, fellow author, fellow creative-writing advisor, and overall a great fellow. He’s also a composer, music theorist, and producer. Check out his papers on Academia.edu, his music on Bandcamp, and his personal musings on his blog – in Portuguese, Spanish/Castilian, and English.

Having explained what on earth is post-autonomous fiction, this time we’ll see an example of it, focusing on some of its literary specifics. Our example will be a most fascinating story. It appeared on The New Yorker, on December 4th, 2017.

I’m referring to Kristen Roupenian’s “Cat Person”.

What’s so interesting is that the story got more views on a single week than any other one published on the magazine that year. That alone is impressive, but the reaction it got is also worthy of mention.

This reaction was due to a narration technique we’ll explore, and such a technique as applied there increased its post-autonomous status.

Roupenian's "Cat Person" — Whether Roupenian’s “Cat Person” is good in a literary sense is irrelevant. Rather, its importance lies in that it’s indistinguishable from reality.

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How to Use Poetic Licence Properly

July 6, 2020

Fiction Writing Tips, Writing

affect, artistic license, fiction, poetic licence, writing

Poetic license (or artistic licence) refers to ignoring factual truth for creative purposes. There is a wide area covered by this definition and so, inevitably, some uses are proper whereas other improper.

In other words, there are ways to use poetic licence properly (enhancing the affective power of your novel), but also improperly (muddling the waters and creating confusion).

In this post we’ll take a look at all these elements – what poetic licence refers to in more detail, ways of using poetic licence, and of course which (and why) are the ways I consider optimal.

how to use poetic licence — The facts of the photo (I assume and hope!) are that the shark is superimposed on the image and the woman was only in a narrow water tank, alone. The use of **poetic licence** allows the artist to present a “reality” that might not be strictly speaking factual, yet possesses enhanced affective power

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