Week 11: Visual Digital Poetry Part 1: Cowboy Poetry

      For this week's seminar we are exploring digital poetry. Using the prompt:

      §Try a "digital" poem, or poem in programmable media, or indeed one using links or HTML as a fundamental dimension

      I decided to try this out. One of my favorite movies is one that I saw just this past semester, Dances with Wolves (1990, Kevin Costner). And one of my other favorite films of all time, and one I consider to be the best film of the 2000-2010 era (Oughts, whatever you want to call them) is There Will Be Blood (2007, Paul Thomas Anderson). I knew I wanted to connect the two together in some way. I combined the awesome font from There Will Be Blood (found at and a credit to Mr Fisk Fonts) and the recommended YouTube video that plays the theme of Dances with Wolves, and a wonderful landscape picture to accompany a classic "Cowboy Poetry" poem, The Spell of the Yukon Gold," by Arthur Chapman. Unfortunately, I got the font to work on my computer, but when I checked from a different computer that didn't have the font installed it didn't show up. So I'm going to e-mail it to the class attached as a PDF. (If you aren't in English 111 and still want to read it, let me know and I'll e-mail it).
      Cowboy Poetry is a subgenre of poetry, and apparently it has a long history that I didn't know much about until my mom mentioned it (kudos to Mom!). It's interesting as hell. I think compiling all of these components made the poem more moving. You were given sensual stimuli on so many fronts--a visual, a text, a font that conjurs up associations with a certain genre and time period, and a song from one of the most beautiful soundtracks ever. I'm pretty happy with it, and I hope you are, too!

The Spell of the Yukon Gold

By Arthur Chapman

(to be read while listening to The "John Dunbar Theme" from the Academy Award winning soundtrack from Dances with Wolves (comp. John Barry)

Out among the big things-   The mountains and the plains-
An hour ain't important,    Nor are the hour's gains;
The feller in the city    Is hurried night and day,
But out among the big things    He learns the calmer way.

Out among the big things-   The skies that never end-
to lose a day ain't nothin'    The days are here to spend;
So why not give 'em freely,    Enjoyin' as we go?
I somehow can't stop thinkin'    the good Lord means life so.

Out among the big things-   the heights that gleam afar-
A feller gets to wonder   What means each distant star;
He may not get the answer,    But somehow every night
He feels, among the big things,   That everything's all right.

For more about Cowboy Poetry, see this useful site: The Classic Cowboy Bush Poetry of the Range Writers