"Taroko Gorge" by Nick Montfort
The lines of this poem cascade down the screen, describing a peaceful natural scene. Its pacing is meditative, reminiscent of some Gary Snyder poems. Its rhythm is mostly iambic with abundant trochees at the beginning of lines and occasional spondees to punctuate moments in the poem. The pacing of the scrolling lines doesn’t let you stop and look away, but won’t be too demanding, and once a line scrolls past visibility it is gone: you cannot scroll up or down. Live the moment in this poem for as long as it lasts, until you reach the end or realize what’s going on… whichever comes first.
The JavaScript engine for this poem inspired a number of variations on this poem by prominent writers in the e-lit and digital humanities community, available here.
