A Creative (and Aggravating) Journey

Using Microsoft Office Power Point to try and make a flash poem was an interesting experience to say the very least, but yet it was also fun. The hardest part about creating the flash poem, at least for me, was what poem best suited the genre of flash poetry. I went through various poems that I have written before (and one I tried to write in cento form), but in the end I settled on my poem entitled, “Ribbons.” The reason that I found it so difficult to pick a poem was due to the fact that what I imagined the flash poem to look like, did not turn out the way I wanted it to when using Power Point, most likely because I was learning the different functions of the software. One poem that I tried to create as a flash poem was called, “Castles in the Air,” a poem that I had written for a pervious class and thought it would make a good flash poem. What I soon found out was that I had too high of expectations of what I wanted to create because of all the images that were threaded into the poem. Although that I did not continue with “Castles in the Air” as a flash poem, it might a poem that I might go back to and try working with again. Here are a few screen shots of the part of the poem that I did work on:





This shows the movements that the different images took when the poem is animated.


“Ribbons” seemed like my best choice to use in this medium because of the way the poem flows and the imagery that is used in the poem was easy to recreate in the Power Point. Here is the title screen of the poem:

The background, though I change a few of the color lengths, is called horizon on Power Point, and gives the understanding to the poem that I hoped for; it portrayed earth which I though was suiting for the poem because of the various images that are present in the poem.

The next slide of the poem, which shows the first stanza of the poem,
which when animated, the words float onto the page like ribbons that are floating effortlessly in the breeze and then are slowly swept off the page, after staying a small amount of time for the reader to read the lines. I hoped the reader would find the imagery of the words moving slowly and peacefully across the page as help to understanding what the stanza is trying to saying about the white ribbon. I used the background to help the reader understand the air imagery in the stanza and how a clear blue sky often denotes good, clean, innocence things, like watching the clouds change shape when the reader was a child (or to this day). Also the slowness of the movements and simplistic colors (white) would give the reader thoughts of times that were easier and still being innocence to the world.

The next slide/part of the flash poem is a bit faster past then the pervious slide, just because of the imagery of the stanza.
The faster pace of the poem and lines, which enter the page in similar fashion, but move more like swimming in water, denotes to the reader that there is a sense of urgency to the stanza. The blue background gives the reader the representation of water and the pink text on the screen shows that text has stepped away from the innocence that was shown in the pervious stanza. This time the reader understands that the poem is narrating the speaker’s search for something, but they do not know what exactly they are searching for among the ever changing waves/moments of life.

The third stanza, when animated, comes in fast because the lines are representing fire imagery, as is shown by the words themselves and the background. Through the lines the speaker is trying to show the passion that they are feeling, the all consuming fire that comes from finding the answer to the pervious stanza. The lines come in fast because when one experiences something that takes hold of their full conscience, whether it be a class, paper, an event, or just something happening in a person’s life, things seem to either fall in place or are chaotic - those thoughts are foremost in a person’s mind and everything else seems to slip by and not matter as much as it once did. The lines come in rotating, standing for the flames of fire and the chaotic feelings that is going through the speaker’s mind during this part of the poem. When the lines leave the page, they leave the top of the page, symbolizing smoke and getting the reader ready for the next stanza of the poem.

The last stanza of the flash poem is quite different from the rest of the slides in the way that it is dark in coloring. The dark coloring of the background and text symbolize the delving of the black ribbon into the dirt. When the lines come onto the screen, they come in fast, as if they are trying to get through the thick, dark earth, but stop abruptly on the screen, and then continue to move slowly down, revolving as they go down to symbolize the death and end of the ribbon.

There are many different meanings that the ribbon(s) could symbolize, but when I was writing the poem, I saw the ribbon as a physical item to represent love. The white ribbon stands for innocence, the innocence that one has before they ever know the love of a boyfriend/girlfriend. The pink ribbon stands for the slight lost of innocence that one loses just by knowing that the love they have might not be as true as they think and also it stands for the searching of what true love it, since to find true love, normally, one is hurt. The red ribbon is the passion that takes place in a relationship, non-sexually. The passion is finding the true love, or what one thinks to be true love, and being happy in the relationship. The black ribbon is the death of the relationship. One just wants to get away from all of the innocence of the sky/water and the passion of the fire, and be in a place that nothing can reach them. This is what I hope the lines and the animation describe in the poem, “Ribbons.”

There are many different meanings that the ribbon(s) could symbolize, but when I was writing the poem, I saw the ribbon as a physical item to represent love. The white ribbon stands for innocence, the innocence that one has before they ever know the love of a boyfriend/girlfriend. The pink ribbon stands for the slight lost of innocence that one loses just by knowing that the love they have might not be as true as they think and also it stands for the searching of what true love it, since to find true love, normally, one is hurt. The red ribbon is the passion that takes place in a relationship, non-sexually. The passion is finding the true love, or what one thinks to be true love, and being happy in the relationship. The black ribbon is the death of the relationship. One just wants to get away from all of the innocence of the sky/water and the passion of the fire, and be in a place that nothing can reach them. This is what I hope the lines and the animation describe in the poem.

The software, once I played around with it a little and had help from Dr. Liu and Shauna, who was sitting next to me, I found using Power Point was fun, though stressful at times when things would not want to work the way I thought they should. Using Power Point and adding in details to the poem that would not have been possible on paper, I believe, will help readers understand the poem better. It will be interesting later in the semester, after I finalize the animation of the flash poem, since I am hoping to add music that my friend is going to help create just for “Ribbons.” It should be interesting to see if my Power Point experience will change… Overall creating my own flash poem has really opened my eyes to the amount of work that creators of other flash poetry must have gone through to get their poems to the finished stages that are perfect. It brings a whole new level of understanding and awe to this new genre of literature.