A Child's Game Confused

Authors

  • Jill Walker Department of Humanistic Informatics, University of Bergen

Abstract

How can we write about hypertext in hypertext? There must be as many ways as there are writers. Many more ways than have yet been attempted. This is a hypertextual essay about and around a cycle of poems by Juliet Ann Martin: oooxxxooo. It's an interpretation of the poems, a reading. It's also about playing with the medium and with writing. The essay speaks its own voice, linking almost only to itself, always beside the poems it speaks of. You may hear voices of theorists behind these words, but they are implicit, a background rather than names to be paraded. The essay is brief and impressionistic and is not meant to be analytically exhaustive. Don't worry about what order to read this in, or about reading all of it. You'll find that the essay loops around itself, much as the poem it describes loops around its hub. When you're tired of the looping, you've probably read enough. (For those of you who crave a measure: there are 28 nodes and about 2500 words here,) Where the essay rubs backs with one of the poems, you'll find a thumbnail of the poem mentioned. These are links between the works. I suggest you start at the beginning and end where you please.

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Published

2006-01-24