HYPERTEXT: Metaphorical Links (Continued)
Once again referencing Mary Ellen’s piece Dreaming in Hypertext, we follow the first link out from the line:
I dream in fuchsia of the coming of the day
We are brought to a website that gives us information on Mayan end-times and this is where the poet’s mind was in writing this line. The next:
when all the madness will have quietly gone away.
The link from ‘madness’ brings us to an NPR article that speaks of the Birth of the Atomic Bomb. This ‘madness’ ic clearly seen as the greater weaponry that man creates that cannot possibly survive; the poet seeing the end of the madness coinciding unhappily with the end of the world.
I seek the clearness of the laughing Buddha’s gaze
Which lands us with the Laughing Buddha himself, and an invitation to the reader to familiarize himself with the doctrine and wisdom of Buddha.
To harness wisdom, and to clarify my stay
For the poet, clarify denotes a meaning beyond comprehension and goes as well to environment. With the current emphasis on global warming, clearing up understanding goes hand in hand with clearing the atmosphere as a way to communicate the future.
Amidst the starkness of the ones who’ve lost their way.
Here the poet again sends us around the globe to an outreach program in Africa and caring for those who require the assistance of those more fortunate. The links emphasize a world that the poem by itself, without the links, does not bring into focus. Society is mankind, all mankind, is what the poet is able to relate by the use of hyperlinking.
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology
July 30th, 2008 at 9:53 pm
The use of linking as a conveyance to a topic much broader–or much more focused–than could be related in this poetic form was essential to my creative process. I found it to be a “way around the rules”, and also a means to say what I really meant. Then again, if I was a superb poet, I wouldn’t need the links, would I?
August 1st, 2008 at 6:25 am
“Then again, if I was a superb poet, I wouldn’t need the links, would I?”
Not so; one really has nothing to do with the other unless you’re using the links as a crutch and you’re not. As a poet, you want to say something in a lyrical way. You’re not hinting (then using the link as a clue or answer)but using the grace of words to offer your perspective. The links in this case show what served as the inspiration.