A Daily Glance

mIEKAL aND & Maria Damon's book eros/ion is a fascinating text, but it's quite different than the project from which it emerged. In the hypertext version, the reader has to click links inside of boxes to be lead to new poems. In contrast, aND and Damon tell us that in the book version that one can continue reading the individual piece started or switch to a new poem when he/she comes across a bold phrase. While that's interesting, it works better through hypertext, though I admit that in the hypertext version I get carried away by the graphics and the clicking, so I focus less on what the texts says.

The first section of the book is essentially a mediation on eros. The section half of the book is not part of the hypertext version, and to me, it's fascinating because part of it is a meditation on the first half of the text. It's like we're reading critical poems on the poems that we've just read, and they sound critical, not like we're being told the writer's intention. Intention we can often ignore, but this self-conscious self-critical activity does contribute to the dialogue about the initial process. Essentially Damon's half of the second section comments on the subject and how it works itself out in a hypertext form.

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