This poem is about hope for humanity. It explains that you must look beyond the general pleasures of life, into the smaller things that make you happy. Eventually, you will be able to live your life contentedly; as J.R.R Tolkien says, "the crownless again shall be King." Honestly, I used this poem because it seemed like it was a perfect poem to animate. The verbs used, such as "glitter," "wander," and "frost" made me excited about which animations I could use. I hoped to emphasize those words, because they are the last words in the lines of this poem and are the most significant to animate (and the easiest, I suppose). I hoped to engage the reader, conveying J.R.R. Tolkien's meaning of the poem and influencing the reader to think about how he articulates this meaning.
I did not enjoy having to cite the poem; I feel as if it takes away from the creativity aspect, and the wholeness of the electronic poem. However, it was neccessary, and I really wanted to do this poem.
Powerpoint was extremely easy to use, at least for me. Being that I have used Powerpoint since high school, perhaps earlier, I used my previous knowledge of animation and my intuition ato properly create this e-poem. However, it may not be easy for somebody who has never used Powerpoint. Here, I began with inserting text boxes (which is really a pain, since you keep having to click insert), then began to animate the "glitters" and "gold." I also made a freeform path for "is not," which looking back I feel was unneccessary; I just did it because I began to get overly into animating the poem. I used an old-looking layout for the background because I thought it was appropriate.
I, at first, had a hard time trying to put in one of my own pictures as the background to the second line of the poem, but I just fiddled around and eventually found out how to send the picture to the background so that the words would show up. I animated "wander" to move right, and I animated "LOST" to grow, shrink, and move left off the screen, as if it were wandering away to get lost somewhere.
I used a canvas background, attempting to portray that Tolkien was talking about being old. I used the checkerboard effect on all the words not significant to the poem (in my mind). I made "STRONG" at 8 point font, making it grow 400% with the grow animation. I then animated "wither" to flicker, and turn into the color of the canvas as if to wither away. I must say I lost sight of my intentions at this point, because the animation became a routine - I would just animate the important words and use entrance animation on the unimportant words.
I loved that I had already taken a picture that corresponds to this part of the poem. However, I also realized at this point that I am simply following the words' meanings in the poem, and not conveying the actual meaning of the poem. I tried to fix this after this line. I used the diamond animation for the first three, and on "FROST," I used the Chiller font and made it grow into a lighter shade of blue, as is the color of frost. I also wished at this point that I was able to do more with pictures, and more with animation; however, I am not skilled enough (yet).
I used the fade technique for "from the ashes a...shall be." I animated "FIRE" to turn 360 degrees, then made it so that it turned blood red. The last words to this slide are "shall be woken," and on "woken" I used the faded zoom, as well as the flicker. I found many limitations in that I was not able to use copyrighted material, and I did not want to use all of Powerpoint's designs, so I had to choose applicable pictures of my own. I believe that if I were able to use copyrighted material without having to cite it, this would be a much more interesting poem. The fact that we had to use that made me a little less excited about the possibilities of this poem.
Again, I feel like I am just animating the words and not giving more meaning to the poem. It seems as though I'm just trying to engage the reader with the interactive properties of some of the words. I left all the words that weren't positive in the darker side of my picture, and used the fly-in effect for the words that were not "emphasized," as Powerpoint calls that specific animation. As for "LIGHT," I put it right above the lamp, and made it enlarge from a normal size into a bright yellow. I also made "shadows" darken, and "spring" bounce. I feel like there is not much else that I can do here but animate simply. 
I did not enjoy having to cite the poem; I feel as if it takes away from the creativity aspect, and the wholeness of the electronic poem. However, it was neccessary, and I really wanted to do this poem.
Powerpoint was extremely easy to use, at least for me. Being that I have used Powerpoint since high school, perhaps earlier, I used my previous knowledge of animation and my intuition ato properly create this e-poem. However, it may not be easy for somebody who has never used Powerpoint. Here, I began with inserting text boxes (which is really a pain, since you keep having to click insert), then began to animate the "glitters" and "gold." I also made a freeform path for "is not," which looking back I feel was unneccessary; I just did it because I began to get overly into animating the poem. I used an old-looking layout for the background because I thought it was appropriate.I, at first, had a hard time trying to put in one of my own pictures as the background to the second line of the poem, but I just fiddled around and eventually found out how to send the picture to the background so that the words would show up. I animated "wander" to move right, and I animated "LOST" to grow, shrink, and move left off the screen, as if it were wandering away to get lost somewhere.I used a canvas background, attempting to portray that Tolkien was talking about being old. I used the checkerboard effect on all the words not significant to the poem (in my mind). I made "STRONG" at 8 point font, making it grow 400% with the grow animation. I then animated "wither" to flicker, and turn into the color of the canvas as if to wither away. I must say I lost sight of my intentions at this point, because the animation became a routine - I would just animate the important words and use entrance animation on the unimportant words.I loved that I had already taken a picture that corresponds to this part of the poem. However, I also realized at this point that I am simply following the words' meanings in the poem, and not conveying the actual meaning of the poem. I tried to fix this after this line. I used the diamond animation for the first three, and on "FROST," I used the Chiller font and made it grow into a lighter shade of blue, as is the color of frost. I also wished at this point that I was able to do more with pictures, and more with animation; however, I am not skilled enough (yet).I used the fade technique for "from the ashes a...shall be." I animated "FIRE" to turn 360 degrees, then made it so that it turned blood red. The last words to this slide are "shall be woken," and on "woken" I used the faded zoom, as well as the flicker. I found many limitations in that I was not able to use copyrighted material, and I did not want to use all of Powerpoint's designs, so I had to choose applicable pictures of my own. I believe that if I were able to use copyrighted material without having to cite it, this would be a much more interesting poem. The fact that we had to use that made me a little less excited about the possibilities of this poem. Again, I feel like I am just animating the words and not giving more meaning to the poem. It seems as though I'm just trying to engage the reader with the interactive properties of some of the words. I left all the words that weren't positive in the darker side of my picture, and used the fly-in effect for the words that were not "emphasized," as Powerpoint calls that specific animation. As for "LIGHT," I put it right above the lamp, and made it enlarge from a normal size into a bright yellow. I also made "shadows" darken, and "spring" bounce. I feel like there is not much else that I can do here but animate simply. 
I used the expand technique for "crownless;" the other words except for "KING" I simply used checkerboard entrance. I made the crown appear with the "KING," and made the word flicker slowly. I used a picture that I made because of the hands at the bottom; emphasizing that the crownless again shall be King.
All in all, I enjoyed this experience working with Powerpoint. Although I went a little overboard in my first attempt, I found out a lot by just playing around with it. I believe that if one stays on the right track and does not simply animate for the fun of it, it is very possible to create a meaningful e-poem. However, if you just animate words and don't completely think about the general picture of the poem, it might just be completely pointless, such as I feel mine is. Although, it was fun to create a piece of artwork that was my own.
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