Ted,

>> George
>> Isn't the problem that poetry is anyway hypertextual, containing
>> references, allusions, multiple meanings, non-poetic images, concealed
>> rhythms, not all of which are consciously put there by the poet, and
>> which the serious reader has to tease out, not by a single linear
>> reading, but by repeated and close study?

I agree that poetry is essentially hypertextual already. (It may or may not
contain all of the above. It may be a simple stone dropped into the mind
where ripples from the poem interact with other phenomena to produce great
waves. It seems to me that the brain is able to link, consciously and
unconsciously, anything it contains to anything else it may contain and so
every reading will be unique.) But to say that there are things which need to
be teased out by repeated and close study could imply a reading which is
already beginning to restrict the possibilities to those which the poet has
put into the poem. I think hypertext may actually be something which, by
virtue of its immersive quality, could encourages us to respond "erotically"
as well as intellectually and by so doing we may avoid the hollowness of
response which the "text which just lies there" can often inspire.

>> And if you try to formalize this by developing the hypertext poem in
>> which every such nuance is represented by a link the reader can follow,
>> aren't you in danger of destroying rather than enhancing the essential
>> interplay between the reader and the poem? Just a thought.
>> Ted Slade

If hypertext poetry were to be merely something which formalized the process
you describe by linking to the given and circumventing the creative reading
then hypertext poetry _would_ destroy rather than enhance. However, I see no
reason why hyperpoetry should impose such a regime. I so no reason why the
poet should suddenly start constructing bad texts. If it were a question of
Chess v 3D-Chess the basic rules would still apply. I see hyperpoetry as
something which is capable of extending the dimensions of the text so that
the creative reading is more likely rather than less, something which is
capable of involving us more fully.


Regards,


Steve


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