Hypertext

If you have never worked with hypertext before, read the introductions to reading and writing hypertext I wrote for English 101 last semester

Your task this evening is to have fun. Roam, read, reflect and write about your experiences with hypertext. Note the first word: read. The promise of instant gratification nested in the underlined link often seduces us into jumping from page to page and icon to icon when we have barely read a sentence or begun to think "Cool pictures!" Be patient. Some hypertexts force us to read by offering screens the reader cannot control. Look, too, at the trade-off between speed of loading and complexity of the image/text relationship. Write as you explore these texts. Note down ideas that occur to you, or models you might to use for your own work. Think about how the writers use the page. What is the page? Do you read all the pages? Can you even find all the pages? How important is it to read all the pages? What role does the uncertainty about whether you are reading everything the author wrote play in your experience? To what extent do you control the reading? Or does the author retain control, simply creating and manipulating a maze more sophisticated than the linear book? To what extent does the inclusion of images add meaning to the words? To what extent is this type of reading a more intense aesthetic experience than reading text on a tangible page? These are important questions for us as writers.

Jamie's poem: look how effectively Jamie uses the page. She immediately shakes readers' expectations by aligning the poem to the right margin instead of the left. As we usually read from left to right, she forces us to 'read' the image before we reach the poem. The image thus becomes an integral part of the poem. Sidestepping: Rodney Canete The Body: Shelley Jackson Hegirascope: Stuart Moulthrop Cinderella?: E. Simpson Sui Sin Far Ezone: a mazazine of hypertext

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