Rengetsu And Ankerson's 'Murmuring Insects'

The Day the Insects Sounded Otagaki Rengetsu and Ingrid Ankerson’s electronic poem “Murmuring Insects” shows a heart breaking take on what occurred on September 11, 2001. While utilizing the poems electronic media, Ankerson uses it sparingly with only simple images and sounds. Unlike other poets the authors masterfully uses the combination of the words, images, and sounds to show how on a normal day something so tragic occurred that silenced everyone to the point where you could hear murmuring insects. The poem’s title page is relaxing with cool colors but there is an ominous feeling coming from the far out shot of a plane flying through the sky, which can only represent the hijacked planes used to terrorize a whole nation, with the small words “in memory,” under the title (Rengetsu and Ankerson). The serenity of the title page is continued by the poem itself, with the sound of insects and the screen being a calm image of the sky and the reflection of the moon in calm water, but this serenity is again broken

When “air” is selected the poem describes geese flying in the sky while a sound bite of a horrified women recollecting the scene she had witnessed (Rengetsu and Ankerson). This section of the poem represents what was occurring in the sky, while the “earth” describes what was happening on the ground level (Rengetsu and Ankerson). The poem using the sounds of ambulances to contrast the erhu, once again juxtaposing chaos with serenity (Rengetsu and Ankerson). The final “water” page departs from referring to what occurred on the other elements, to instead refer to the tears that were shed for all that perished, with the poem having a background of a close up of an eye, while the words “tears like dew well up in my eyes” show in the foreground (Rengetsu and