I’m currently working on a hypertext poem. This means I’m writing poetry. The problem is I’m writing poetry and I have a dozen other things to do. But writing poetry sucks you into an elaborate and time consuming fantasy space, where nothing else should matter but “odes dripping from the tree branches.” Images come and all kinds of problems need to be solved. Then there’s the added problem of “hypertext” poetry with its new aesthetic layers.

I’m writing a hypertext poem because I’m jealous of our students in new media who have all kinds of opportunity to produce, but no, not the teacher, who has a dozen other things to do. That sounds a little boohoo dramatic and certainly this is a condition others would love to grapple with.

I’m going to be sucked in, though, other dozen things be damned.

P.S.: I have found a perfectly reasonable application for stretch text in the project!