conclusion 209versations and debates through litservs as well as through individ-
ual blogs. Poets such as John Cayley, Peter Finch, Ingrid Ankerson,
Megan Sapnar and Jenny Weight have all used web technologies,
computer programming and multimedia presentations in different
ways with varying intentions. One of the key commentators on the
impact of technology and literature, N. Katherine Hayles, argues
that the umbrella term ‘electronic literature’ or ‘electronic writing’
(which might characterise some of the work by the poets mentioned
above), can be thought of as excluding ‘print literature that has
been digitized’ since it is ‘by contrast “digital born”, a fi rst genera-
tion digital object created on a computer and (usually) meant to be
read on a computer’.^4 Within the categorisation of ‘digital object’,
one might include the familiar term ‘hypertext’ which could be
understood, according to Ted Nelson, as ‘series of text chunks
connected by links which offer the reader different pathways’.^5 Or,
as Jakob Nielsen proposes: ‘Hypertext is non-sequential writing, a
directed graph where each node contains some amount of text or
other information... Hypertext should also make users feel that
they can move freely through the information according to their
own needs’.^6 Other categories we might associate with digital forms
could be interactive fi ction, generative texts, installation video
and sound poetry. Poet-critics, such as Loss Pequeño Glazier,
consider that there is an ongoing conversation between electronic
writing and a tradition of experimental verse, that the digital fi eld
in effect extends a published tradition. For poet Brian Stefans,
electronic writing encapsulates a compendium of identifi cations.
His online entry ‘What is Electronic Writing?’ offers a most useful
overview.^7
Stefans argues that electronic writing could be thought of as a
genre in its own right, but at its most general it ‘takes advantage
of the possibilities afforded by digital technology – such as the
Internet, or graphics programs such as Illustrator or Photoshop,
or animation / audio / interactive programs such as Flash in their
creation and presentation’. Most importantly, he suggests that
the forms that the writing may take are ‘informed by new ways of
thinking brought on by the way digital technology has impacted
our world’. Specifi c to poetry, he identifi es the following: the
hypertextual work, a poetic narrative which enables interaction,