Hi Bill (and Jimmy and Rob if you're reading this)

Hi back Julianne (and Jimmy and Rob if you're reading this)

I've been told I write a Dorothy Parker reading-reaction: too much about my problems and how it's like pulling teeth to get me to read anything. Reading over this it looks like I spent too much time on process and not enough on content. That's for 2 reasons: (a) process is my specialty, and (b) process is where the room for growth is in this piece; the poems themselves are by and large righteously awesome already.

I absolutely submit to your righteously awesome reading-reaction chops.

Perhaps the biggest problem is that I may not be your target audience. I am "high on hypertext" but very unschooled in regard to poetry (I have read and loved some poems but my background is not at all systematic in this area). So I won't try to make any technical comments and if I do make some by accident (without knowing that I am) please ignore them.

Once, during a reading by Galway Kinnell, a baby babbled and cooed along with the poet as he read. When the mother tried to shush the kid, the poet instead shushed her, saying that a baby was like a tuning fork in regard to poetry -- or at least a poem being read aloud.

Are you the baby in this parable? Only insofar as you consider yourself "very unschooled in regard to poetry" -- the oldest form of literature (after drama, though I may get some argument on this point from literary critics with tonier credentials than mine...).

A glance at the brief excerpt from that poet's work included in "Peopling Heaven" will surely demonstrate why this poet considers Galway Kinnell a master, not just of the plain style this poet aspires to, but of its tuning fork quality in regard to life.

Overall notes at the endŠ

Really intense title. I have no idea what it means but I am totally intrigued! It is redolent of, well, "The Past" ­ whenever it was that people spelled like that. {Cheating: I know from a skim of Rob's comments, which I actually tried not to read since I was afraid that would throw me off, that it's in part about Your past, so this theme seems appropriateŠ} Does the medieval period (or whenever it was) have any direct application to this I wonder.

I'm going to be watching for who the worms (dragons, right?) are and when and how they meet. (Did I say I am embarrassingly literal sometimes? OK, no more apologies, I'll just let it rock.)

I am somewhat put off by "hypertext" (because I know what it means, and worry that it will alienate others) and "chapbook" (because I don't know what it means ­ I believe it has some historical relevance, which goes with what I know about your demonstrated interests, but it's opaque to me).

I kind of don't like it when works of art try to define themselves. (Perhaps you want to offer a handhold butŠ) If they MUST, I prefer very bald stuff like, "a story ofŠ"

[I'm going to take the default path all the way through first.]

Simple and direct! Couldn't be better!

I'm dying to know who Poogie is but I'm guessing I never will; it sounds like a pet name.

Whoa. Really stunning. Think to self: "so goddamn true." With delight I discern an overarching theme common to both this work (hereinafter WM) and the ineluctably intoxicating, the first hypertext I ever read that I could honestly call a "page turner," We Descend.

I trained as an historian myself but it's to the human in me that your work appeals.

Later it would be fun to revisit this to see what it turns out to "mean" (a common desire of mine with regard to epigraphs). The title is the part of this poem that seems to make the least "sense" to me (or open the scope of the thing so wide that my brain can't go there). Note to self: return here later.

[In my version there is an extra space between This and chapbook, and the first use of "p arents" is broken across a line. Since I know you're moving this I will save the copy editing for later unless there is something that really confuses me.]

I like the use of the color and hope it is meaningful. (I always hope this.)

"lobes" is kind of a weird word, suggesting "lungs" to me. But not in a bad way. It suggests this work will "breathe."

The use of "the poet" feels good to me here. Much cleaner for me (as a reader) than "my" since nowadays "my" often refers to the reader (e.g. My Yahoo). [If you want the URL for a few tedious essays on this subject, which I just forwarded to Jill Walker, let me know. I recommend not, they'd be a distraction from getting your awesome work out there.]

"A family album" vs. "poems" leads me to wonder whether the two lobes will have different shapes. Is there an album shaped (as opposed to normal shaped) lobe of poems?

Is the word "poses" (emphasized here) going to be meaningfully related to a theme (the theme of posing) or is this lobe just a congeries of poems from different viewpoints?

The lobe titles feel really good to me (BIG and interesting and plain but good as opposed to trendy and easily dated ­ I want this puppy to last as long as people have parents). He Still Thinks is my favorite (without having read any of the contents).

I hate explanations of the mechanism. (More so as I grow older.) What I want is some unobtrusive navigation.

It's nice (honest, principled) that you explain that the default path won't give me everything. (How like life!)

I'm not wild about the word "sequence" (which Trellix always uses) because it sounds technical and bloodless. Group? Skein? (Oh, don't rewrite the thing Dorothy, just reactŠ) And it's weird that basin of attraction is in quotation marks. I usually want those around words that I think I already know the meaning of, to show that the word is being used in a different way (e.g. "sex", "death"). Here they're around a phrase that is completely new to me. It'd be much stranger and more haunting without the quotation marks.

When I've seen what this basin is like, maybe I'll have another name to suggest. I hate place names (The Cottage) when they're not indicated but Š unless the basin of attraction is a plot element, why not just let it be the place readers tend to wind upŠnot named, the place where all the navigation is turned on or somethingŠ

(I bet this is a mystical Term of Art in the hypertext community, and I just don't know it because I'm new, but if it is, why tell the readers about it? Either it works or it doesn'tŠmask the mechanism like a stage magicianŠoops too directiveŠ)

/One poem acts as

First reaction: "Oh nooooo not more directions!"

More composedly: Okay, thoughtful idea, now I understand what the sink means to you. But I don't want to know all this in advance! Let me feel the inexorable tug of this poem by wandering aroundŠ

Feeling in gut: either put this material with the preceding page (no need for surprise/suspension amongst the two) or what I'd really prefer: just let it happen! At the bottom of Say Goodbye where (as you say) all the paths run out (ain't it the truth) I'd just put a link (you could even make it hard to find if you want): What now? And when readers click on that: "This is a dead end. You must climb outŠ" (or Š "find a way to go on" ­ cool double meaning w/ emotions about death ­ or Š whatever metaphors occur to you).

"The reader" feels awkward to me (I guess it goes with "the poet" but this could be written around). My strong bias: since people don't read instructions anyway, and since the Web has encouraged people to click, just make sure there are some clickable things (including perhaps an overall map of the work, made from an image map, if you want to preserve that valuable feature from Storyspace), and they will explore, and they will feel the somewhat claustrophobic nature of the "Say Goodbye" space without you making it explicit. But that's the designer talking, not the reactor. The reactor just thought "Oh noooo don't tell me all this, I want to feel it myself and have it sneak up on meŠ"

These titles look GREAT. I can't wait to read these!

Where's the preface? I was expecting the preface next! Is this just the title, I mean, do the titles come on by themselves like this? Or is this the poem?

So this is the poem. I like to gulp my poems all at once (perhaps you don't like me to, but that's what I like) so I'm curious how long it is.

Very vivid for me through "breast" ­ I felt the cold, for sure. Without knowing gender I had problems visualizing the flesh and the nipple. (Yes I am a prisoner of the flesh.) I'll guess, based on the "star", that the nipple's owner is male.

"The nipple is a star." Only a poet would have the balls to say that kind of thing! (ŠI think to myself. I like it.)

Wow wow wow wowowwowo

Guessed wrong but I'm glad to know. (Actually with the old man coming first, I was still assuming it was his nipple until I got to the end of the stanza.)

Now I have a picture of the whole scene.

You're disciplining me, making me read each stanza before going on. I still think I'd prefer to devour (and scroll up/down) but I'll see how this feelsŠ

Whoa! That was it! That was the end!

I had a really vivid and complete picture of the whole scene, but I held back enjoying it, stopped myself from coming if you will (women can do this, perhaps men can too) because I thought there might be more. I really prefer to know when the end of the poem is so I can let myself go and enjoy the climaxes. "Can I breathe yet?"

OK, beating a dead topic. You'll either get what I mean or disagree, either way, I've spent enough time on itŠ

The Button was a great for me. The idea that your father has mostly lost his mind is clearly implanted too (carrying over to the next poems) but the image was the strongest part.

OK, next!

Yeow. The wrong part suggests an attendant who doesn't care, doesn't give a damn, doesn't see him as a person. Very vivid.

A flashback with a flashforward in it (only a poet could pull this off, she thinks).

Since I have some familiarity with the dead child problem the "a child that will live" jumped right out at me. So much is gently suggested! Eeeeee!

I can't suggest anything to improve these poems, I am just loving themŠ

Whoa! Great! I am hoping that this is the end ­ I'll let myself enjoy it like it is ­

Oh no, it wasn't the end!

Great contrast "each day" vs. "nocturnal absence", great repetition of plain powerful words.

And what about the old guy we left, strapped in? Are we going back to him?

Oh good (except it's not good news but) we're getting his story, how he got in the chair.

"he goes without it" didn't give me a clear picture ­ I guess this means "he stops using it" ­ anyway that's what I translated it to.

More intense repetition of plain powerful words. The switch to ampersands in the last line jarred me. (If it was supposed to, OK.)

Now I can't know if this is the end yet. I am your prisoner. Helpless. (The poem is affecting my mood too I guess.)

IntenseŠ

Not many pictures here but you've earned the right to talk in abstraction since I'm still seeing the pictures from the last stanzasŠ

"regains its dignity" is pretty darn abstract.

Goddamn! It was the end! I wanted to go back to the room with the yellow and white cake more vividly. Or at least to know it was the end. (Dorothy! You've made your point!)

I'm with you so farŠ

Twin beds! They were members of their eraŠ

This is haunting butŠhow do you know this? An immense feat of imagination, or did he tell you he used to do this?

"aimed just right" gave me a shudder (or you can call it a frisson if you've got italics)

tendrils of what? Farming community, so, tendrils of somethingŠas a person from a food producing state myself I was curious and couldn't see them quite clearly unless I know. (Goddamn Dorothy you're taking all the fun out of it.)

End problem (is it theŠ). Perhaps if I was a more sophisticated reader of poetry I would treat all stanzas the same and not let the "last" land in my ear with an extra thump, perhaps I am going to learn a new way of reading poetry from this and apologize for whiningŠ

Still with youŠ.

And with youŠsee how disciplined I am becomingŠ

Great that this picks up the breast-touching theme from The Button.

When I read "good boy" I had to backspace and make sure this was the father. Because the deciding not to touch her breast made me think this might have been the poet speaking (cheating: I know the poet is male from the title page plus we're pals, or we were before he read this). Why wouldn't he touch his wife's breast ­ ah yes, the year in the title comes into play here ­

Still with youŠ

Ooooh I really like this one!!

I know what this is, says the literal reader, that's the sun coming up! But I wondered if it wasn't a fire at his house (we had 2 in 1 year at my house) and I backspaced to check.

When the Call Came

[Goddamn! It was the end! etc etc ­ but I am getting something out of the rhythm this multi-page thing is suggesting, for the reading - ]

What call, she wonders. Sounds like bad newsŠ

Still don't know what the call is, just that it is more likely to be bad news, I'm on pins and needles.

I had a bit of trouble sorting out the "he's". Is it the (male) best friend who swore that he'd never seen the poet's father drunk, and which of them was never otherwise.

And does she hate the wife's helplessness because it mirrors her own, or does it (I haven't read her as helpless, she got him to stop drinking once, 2 poems or so ago)?

C'mon, let's get in the car already!

/So my mother sent the

This was also a little hard to decode. The neighbors are also a couple? and they both drove her (and the poet's father stayed home?) and the male neighbor parked while the female neighbor went in with her (but hanging back a little)Š

Still dying to know where they're going. The hospital, one guesses, but WHY!!

Still not sure what's happening. Who are "they" ­ other family members?

Is this the death of the poet's parents' parents? This is the mother of the poet, we know that for sure (but we backspaced to check). Some intense responsibility ("she was their center now") has fallen on her, happened to her.

WAIT ­ can this be that she's the center because she lost one of her kids? Whoever they are they're not malign ­ they're crying and supportive ­ I'm still going nuts about what exactly happened. People who are members of this family would know ­ so that makes me remember the epigraph (I am one of the ones who doesn't know what the buried rusty thing is, or was).

I think she's just the center of the moment, BUT for awhile I got off on a wrong track of thinking she was the center of the family because some older matriarch had died.

If is IS their kid, why didn't the father come, drunk or not?!!

Some vivid images, but WHAT!!!??

People wouldn't "behold" something awful although they might "witness" it.

Adopted child?

The last 2 sentences about how "they" (still no visual of this) have chosen to be here, to be hers, are baffling me.

Now we're getting somewhere ­

"the presence of his absence" is really good.

My current guess is that this is the poet's father's death at the rest home. That the best friends were he and she throughout the first page of this and the father wasn't present (but I didn't get that at the time, which is why I was confused). And They are the other residents who naturally are all ghoulish yet supportive at a time like thisŠ

These last two really rocked me (plus I'd gotten beyond my confusion).

How does the poet know this? I asked. Answer: his imaginative genius tells himŠor maybe his mom told him about it laterŠ

Experiencing this as a snippet really worked for me.

[Now I am letting myself react fully to the last one.]

OK, here we go (this is a great title by the way)

A vivid scene!

"exhausted by love" distracted me from it a bit, but I came back

oooh enjambment (don't tell me those words I'll just misuse them)

What is she still mad about ! I feel repeatedly teased by these structuresŠ

The Poet Is In His Father's Chair. Eeeeeeek scary!

Ooooh totally awesome.

She's still yellingŠI wanted this and "she was talking to herself" to be in the same tense, either both in present or both in past. Whichever. To clarify that they were both at the same time, in the poet's experience. Or are they NOT in the same time and therefore I've missed the pointŠ

Yeah! I want a story tooŠ

(artifact of reader: the line that says "choose a story" doesn't let me choose, it chooses for me, because I clicked the word "story" ­ I'm hoping that is an instruction only)

I'll choose "If He Came Home"

Cool, no title, 'cause we already had the titleŠ

[This was GREAT, I wanted to enjoy it more fully so I read it fast, as is my preference.

yes remorse can be very voluptuous - "you are the moon" was where I got only one of my chills

at least they could talk about it I find myself saying

and I admire the poet's honesty in identifying with his father and admitting it but more poetically of course than I'm expressing it here]

[Then I reversed to read the other story/poem]

[Oooh, this one ends the same way, this must be the sink he's talking about, although we don't get the title so I thought it was the same poem ­ that's OK if that was on purpose]

[I enjoyed 1935 and I also went back and read If He Came Home to find out which parts were really part of that ­ and not Say goodbye ­ stuff like that (dividing things into their proper components) obsesses me]

It's intense how well "Say goodbye" fit on the end of If He Came Home!

Now reading the goodbye poem again ­ are the wyrmes corpse worms? "slick fingers" that meet in our flesh?

OK, back to ContentsŠ

It feels weird to me that the name of a poem and the name of a lobe are the same. But in a way it's helpful that each poem has a "keystone (or keynote) poem" and that the title is a clue to which one that isŠ

Probably this wouldn't bug me unless I scanned the TOC, which if the navigation scheme is different, wouldn't be so necessary.

[Here I got interrupted to deal with a family member's surgery, speaking of corpse worms, and so I'm going to read more quickly so as to get this to you before class ends! I'd rather read the whole thing and make less detailed notesŠI see I have abandoned the default enter enter enter approach too, when I got into the sub-stories below She's Still Mad]

Note on the three Mortality drafts: Oh. Oh. Oh. !!!

"his good left hand" ­ again, so much is gently suggested. (The scorched earth, emotionally and physically.) It's a privilege to watch you at work.

My Father Loves His Death: Wonderful! beyond any statement of mine.

At first when I had an entire page with just a number I shrieked, "again, too much teasing," but it's far easier to read them in parts (and less disruptive) when I'm not taking notes. Which your readers will not be doing. So take everything I've said about that with a grain of salt, perhaps my extreme irritation with the pauses was an artifact of my recording my reactions.

ŠMy Father Behind Me: I knew when I was at the end, this time. Perhaps I am learning your rhythms. Being changed.

His Portrait Speaks: Was this his adventure or yours? I'm guessing hisŠwhoa!!

The Impatience:

There's an extra "and" before "the fire would kindle". I like the asterisked paragraph although I see the issues with putting it in. I wanted a link from "say goodbye" in the essay, to the poemŠbut instead it took me to the Father Died TOCŠ

Peopling Heaven: OK, the title explained! (I am leaving my previous misunderstanding because that's the point of a reading reaction.)

I love these essays but I want them (in the structure) to be the last thing the person reads, the addenda or apocrypha. First they hear the stories in the poems, then they read your essays if they need to. The essays do add something but I wanted the strong visuals of the poems first. (Which I mostly had.)

Interesting little two-node poem (ending with "that shut him up?) by pressing Enter from the Father Died TOCŠI like it but I wanted it to have a title and a place.

I want to get back to the TOC from everywhere, but I don't want to have to use itŠ (more on this if you care).

Just went through the Mother Died TOC: these poems are wonderful. Still not having the problem with the chunks, but moving back and forth a lot.

He Still ThinksŠ

[Now you are working with images I know: Trinity Church at the tip of Manhattan, Ash Wednesday, scripture, skeletal friends, wrestlingŠ]

In the AIDS Concert poem I found the breaking up of stanzas, so I "discovered" them, actually helpful for the first time. Because it made me breathe between them.

All these are very good, but He Still Thinks I am going to memorize if you don't mind.

I don't understand the last line: He still thinks he's a terminalŠcase? that he's terminal (going to die? he's right, he is). That he's a terminal ­ communicating? In a way the ambiguity works but I wanted to let you know it was there; it did not give me as vivid a thump/image/orgasm it's not my favorite of your last lines. (But I'm still going to memorize it along with the rest of the poem.)

I feel more strongly than ever that you should not telegraph the "sink" but just let them wrassle with it. Maybe with handholds out, but handholds that emphasize where they've been and what pulling themselves out means.

Well, now I will send this to you for what it's worth. I am happy to do more detailed reactions to the 2nd and 3rd lobes if you want, but most of my comments are really about process / interface stuff, the poems are darned near ready. (I guess you have to pick which version of MortalityŠso that's still to do.)

The problem with reading the work of someone whose other work I know: from the beginning this has jousted with "We Descend" in my mind (as do most other hypertexts, poor sad benighted things). Could this possibly be as good? I wondered. Well, it IS as good and because of its accessibility and courage (which it has in addition to the same strength and imaginativeness as WD) and maturity it is even better! I am not trying to discourage you from writing anything more, oh no, but if this turns out to be your magnum opus, your Hamlet with about 10 other plays thrown in, this will be (will have been) something to be incandescently luminously happily proud of. Oh. Oh. Oh. !!!

I offer all possible moral support for getting it out there in an accessible form so everyone start memorizing and living with the poetry and the shades of all your favorite dead poets can come and wash your feet with their dusty tears and then wipe your feet with their spectral gossamer hairŠ

your fan,

Julianne