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% Digital Creation
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% Reuben Thomas
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% Reset from Impression Publisher with poetry package 24/7/00
% Used poemnotes package 18/12/00; tidied up and used my poem package
% 21/12/00; made HeVeA-friendly 8/10/03; switched \lips to ellipsis
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\documentclass[english]{article}
\usepackage{a4,babel,palatino,ellipsis}
\usepackage[nonotes]{poem}

\pagestyle{empty}


\begin{document}
\begin{poem}
\title{Digital Creation}
\stanza*
Darkness. Silence. Void. \\

\stanza*
Start with a single point. \\
Stark white, it hangs immobile, untwinkling. \\

\stanza*
Let it expand\dots \\

\stanza*
The dot swells, writhes, and \\
Bursts into a galaxy of multicoloured stars \\
That rush madly past, streaming and pulsating as they whirl, \\
Then slow. \\

\stanza*
More calmly now, a planet approaches, \\
A blue-green sphere wreathed in haze; \\
Alien in its crystalline perfection, \\
It is yet eerily familiar. \\

\stanza*
Descending, the clouds part \\
To reveal a rich panorama: \\
Rocky heights become lush forests which slope gently down \\
To sparkling seas, and the coral depths below. \\

\stanza*
On the ground, the view diversifies; \\
Strange creatures move; large scaly tripeds \\
Stalk among the spiny trees with probing eyes, \\
While tiny winged shells hum and hover \\
Above a fizzing stream, \\

\stanza*
Within whose cool tranquillity \\
Myriad protozoans flit and wheel; \\

\stanza*
Smaller still, the very water dances, \\
A chaos of insubstantial particles. \\

\stanza*
The vision vanishes. \\
But the numbers which created it remain \\
In timeless limbo. \\

\stanza*
Wonderful, that from two blank digits \\
Such splendour can arise. \\

\author{Reuben Thomas}
\poemdate{Winchester, 25th--31st January 1992}
\end{poem}
\begin{notes}
  I think that this poem requires some explanation. I have often been
  repelled by machine-worship such as the paeans of the futurists, but
  the wonder of computers for me represents something quite
  different---the power to make our imagination come alive. This is
  what I have tried to express in \emph{Digital Creation}, in the form
  of an imagined Virtual Reality sequence (in Virtual Reality, you
  wear a headset which provides a computer-generated stereo view of an
  imaginary universe, which changes as you move your head, and a
  glove, which enables you, by moving your hand, to move through and
  interact with your surroundings). I am fascinated by the
  possibilities for creating your own universe.

  I entered this poem for the Gold Medal for English Verse (I think; I
  think that Verse and Prose prizes alternated gold and silver each
  year) in my last year at Winchester. There was no placing other than
  the winner (as far as I remember; sometimes there was a Proxime
  Accessit, but not this time), but I was delighted that the judge (a
  Rev. someone-or-other) commented that the poem felt ``cold'', which
  was exactly what I wanted to convey. He wrote: ``This is an
  imaginative [sic] with interesting vocabulary---just a shade too
  depersonalised for me, but that's perhaps just me. Do keep going
  your own way---but keep self critical [sic].''
\end{notes}
\end{document}
