A few words about assembling the following words as a cyberpoem:

Circa 1989, my first and really only impression of "hypertext" was positive because the idea that different forms of expression I work or am associated with (writing, photos, music/sound, video, editing) combined one big elecronic text -- as a "life's work" type of compendium -- was appealing.  Later, as a graduate student researching electronic poetry, I didn't really think about the idea too much, though I was wishing that I had all of the publications, recordings and databases available at all of the libraries available online.  The network could be more useful that way.

Lately getting back to the original idea, challenging myself to transform analog work for digital presentation, synchronizing materials generated in presence, as an exercise if nothing else.  Programming them from ideas which present themselves after contemplation.

February 10, 2000, Amiri Baraka gave a lecture and a performance (with his group, Blue Ark:  The Word Ship) at New Jersey Institute of Technology.  As editor of Newark Review, co-sponsor of the event, and an associate of Baraka, I was invited to say a few words of introduction before his lecture.  Part of this introduction turned out to be "Barakacrostics", a series of acrostic poems, one for every letter of his name.  After a few pages of word sketches in my notebook, I consulted the Oxford English Dictionary to pick up a few "K" words.  I jotted them down on a piece of paper in the order they appear on the screen at the beginning of  KKKKKK.  Once the acrostics were complete, a connection was seen between the two poems;  one led to another, in effect.  In an effort to electronically enable the materials, a link, a digital photograph sent to me by Ben Polsky, and the audio track from the video of the NJIT event were added.  Ultimately, I hope to extend this type of process to all of the creative work I have generated.
 

Chris Funkhouser
February 2000