Preface - Electronic Poetry Center

From: John Cayley
Subject: Inscription in complex media
Ron Silliman wrote:
>My sense is that any work in hypertext that is good would be good
>writing in an absolutely hide-bound traditional print format…
>
>Also, the word on the street is that the archivists are avoiding
>collecting disks of manuscripts like the plague, even though in many
>programs you could tell, for example, how many levels of revision (and
>length of composition) were involved.
…
>These tools at hand are still very primitive, if we just envision what
>they will look like in 100 years…
Joe Amato responded (in part):
>i would simply like to add that this does NOT mean (nor do i take ron or
>jim as suggesting anything of the sort) that folks shouldn’t wander off and
>play in said tinkertoy directions… i learned a lot, methinks, from
>TINKERTOYS–-and building blocks…
Yes, much of the good writing that has been inscribed as hypertext would be
good in other media. But this is not an argument which implies that it should
appear in another form. That is a decision within the gift of the writer. Some
writing, however, either could not exist in more ‘traditional’ media, or would