An Expanding Poem?

This hypertext poem Midwinter Fair doesn't belong to just one person, and isn't located at a single site. If you want to join in, write a section of your own, or use a poem you've already written.

Doesn't have to be a poem. This is multimedia territory. A picture, sound file, whatever...

But fair's fair. If you want a link to your poem, then you have to provide, one way or another, a link back somewhere into Midwinter Fair.

How to join in this hypertext poem

If you have your own page, then you too can join in the hypertext poem.

Find a poem (or write one) that you think will link in some way to one of the ones in Midwinter Fair.

Find a word or a phrase somewhere in one of the participating poems that you'd like your poem to be linked from. It must be something that isn't already used as a link.

Then find another of the participating poems that something in your poem will link to. Set up your poem on a page together with the link to the URL of this poem.

Then email the maintainer of the page you want to be linked from, telling them the word/phrase you'd like them to use as a link, the poem the word/phrase is in, and the URL of your poem.

Then when it's all set up, someone clicking on that link from mine will jump to yours, and they can get back to a different point by clicking on the link from yours.

Remember though, that no-one has any obligations here. If the owner of the page doesn't want to provide a link to yours for any reason, you can't insist on it.

There's no reason why you shouldn't have several poems, with internal links between them, or several links between your poems and others on different sites. You might want to put an entry point from your main page into the poem somewhere. (Doesn't have to be the same as my entry point, though I think it's probably more fun if each participant only has a single entry point.)

If you are already part of the hypertext poem, and someone asks you to link their poem, I hope you'll consider doing so. I suggest that you have a look at the poem you're being asked to link to first, to make sure that a) it has a valid link of its own in place, and b) it's a poem you'd be happy to link to.

Have Fun!, Peter

Onwards to the Fair