Structure
The structure of this poem is essential to what it is. As Larsen's website and the Firefly website state, Firefly is a matrix poem. "It is a poem 6 lines long with 5 stanzas. However, each line is also 6 lines deep."
Under the poem's introduction, it advises "Readers make their own way through the text by clicking on each line to reveal a
different facet of the story. Click on the right hand icon for the next
installment of lines."
On the other hand, Larsen on her website states, "Click on the line to uncover ulterior meanings."
Interestingly enough, both statements ring true.
If you decide to read it stanza by stanza, the poem is about a person
waiting to see fireflies in the dark. The second stanza shows the
narrator waiting in the wet glass blades. The third stanza shows the
fireflies overwhelming the narrator as the fireflies emerge and the
person waiting holds their breath and so on.
Finally it ends with the stanza,
"For what he has is not for me."
Regardless of how one reads the poem, the impression is similar. It
makes sense to see why Larsen dubs the poem with the phrase "180
degrees of separation."
Not only are there 180 different ways to phyically read the poem, the
degrees of separation are also important. They show how everything is
seperate yet somehow connected to everything else.
Because of this structure, disorientation, and context, this work can
be called not only an interactive fiction but also a work of
literature.
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Interactive Fiction
Disorientation
Structure
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