5. Can we defy our habits?

This is Glazier's ultimate question (178), and the point that makes his book a crucial moment in the development of a political digital aesthetic. What are the benefits of reading digital text as a material mode of making shaped by institutional and ideological concerns? Perhaps the more important question is the reverse: What are the consequences of not reading digital poetry, as all other poetries and other modes of writing, as a material ideological practice? What are the consequences, for example, of HTML's bias towards English?

&Ocirc; saisons, &ocirc; ch&acirc;teaux,<br>

quelle &acirc;me est sans d&eacute;fauts?,br>

In reference to the investigation I propose, one that seeks an affirmation of the facts of the material struggle, I am reminded of the Mexican exclamation, "¡Orale!" "¡Orale!" which means, "Speak it!" or "Indeed!"--but with emphasis to the point of, "Tell it like it is!" The essence of the expression is in orating, or giving a concordant oral message (that's the "oral" in "orale"). "¡Orale!" speaks to the engagement with the real of the activity or fact that is being asserted. It is essential at this point in the development of electronic literature to focus our attention on works that engage the "real" of the activity, continuing innovative practice in poetry and fiction. It is important to engage in practice that has provided a critique of the cultural status quo and of our ways of reading as an apparatus of that status quo. (172-173)

The reading and writing practices that Glazier recommends are part of a larger mode of attention to the social makings of our world. Where, indeed, is the World in the World Wide Web? These practices outlined and exemplified in Digital Poetics are part of a cultural politics as well: "As culture progresses through innovation, the innovative in digital literature can diversify and pluralize our relation to the text and to the world" (178). Glazier is the first to admit-to insist on, for that matter-that no practice, including those he champions in this new era of digital poetry, is neutral or innocent. And it is this point itself that offers us the first next step in the ongoing project of learning to defy our habits. ¡Orale!

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