Treasured Artifacts on Display at the Exhibition

• Hand-made pinwheel created by Larsen for teaching hypertext poetry
• by Deena Larsen
• Modeled in 3D by Sierra O'Neal, the Electronic Literature Lab

Among the boxes of archives Deena Larsen donated to THE NEXT in 2022 was a hand-made pinwheel that she used during the late 1990s to educate audiences about the new affordances of the electronic medium. Colorful designs and lines of a poem written by Larsen can be seen on each of its blades. The lines on the front of the blades read: "into the wild unknown," "or truths and false words," "through thin ears riding," and "listening closely." The lines on the inside of its cup read: "into my," "soul," "the wind," "whispers." "Once," "upon," "a," "word" appear on the back of each of the four blades spinning on the axle as the pinwheel is blown, turning this child's toy into a poetry machine.