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I would divide "Birds of Good omen for
Sandra," (http://artists.banff.org/tmcl/birds/index.html
[Accessed 27 September 1999].) into five sections, or stanzas, each based on a pause in
the movement of the poem and a change in the tone. The first three "stanzas"
continue in a similar movement, the first line of each stanza starting at about the same
place, each succeeding line appearing slightly lower than the one before it, lines
alternating between being slightly to the right or the left of the center of the poem, as
if descending stairs. This motion sets up a reference to the beginning of the poem,
"You told me one morning / climbing open stairs / frightens you," and as the
speaker obviously cares deeply for the "you," the poem proceeds in a descending
form, as if not to frighten. The last line of each of these sections, the one in which the
speaker offers to send a certain type of bird, is raised slightly above the one preceding
it, imitating the nature of a bird, to rise in flight. Throughout the poem, many birds are
offered by the speaker to Sandra "because the ground lacks" something--hope,
warmth, and compassion--throughout the poem. The speaker offers creatures that live a life
off the ground, away from this lack. The fourth section of the poem begins with surfaces of birds being offered, their feathers, and this stanza's movement is upwards. Feathers typically represent good luck which correlates to the idea later in that stanza that the speaker would like to "frighten an ill fortune." In this section, the ascending lines contrast the motion of the poem which has heretofore been descending, and the word "frighten" is repeated from the third line of the poem pointing towards an interpretation that the good luck wished upon her will allow her to climb fearlessly, be it stairs, or upward in life. Periodically throughout the poem, an image of a bird, what looks like a seagull, appears in between the stanzas, and flaps its wings once. At one point in the poem, this occurrence repeats itself three times in a row. This occurrence blurs the distinction between the fourth and fifth stanzas, but it is clear by the differences between the lines that proceed it and the lines that follow it that the distinction does lie somewhere in that animation. The poem ends with the following
lines: This last line, "they cannot fly," remains on the screen a little longer than the other lines before the screen goes blank, as if the thought was considered, and then brushed aside, the belief refused. Periodically throughout the poem, an image of a bird, what looks like a seagull, appears in between what might be called stanzas, and flaps its wings once. At one point in the poem, this occurrence repeats itself three times in a row. The action is so precise and perfect and repeated, that it becomes obvious to the reader that what computer-presented images are is exactly that--computer-presented, mechanical--and the reader must recognize that even though that mechanical bird is going through the motions, flapping its wings so beautifully, it is not flying, will not ever fly. Birds are an important image in this poem, as they are in other electronic poems, because "Birds of Good omen for Sandra" is a poem about motion. The constant turn to birds is a means of getting away from the ground, a place one is stuck in, a place where one cannot move very far. For Sandra, the ground is not a very welcoming place, but wings would be an escape. Hypertext, in a way, is the wings. It allows for the motion and possibilities that print text may not. |
