“Shorter American Memory” is a collection of prose poems by Rosmarie Waldrop, one of the poets who visited this semester as part of the English Department’s Literary Series. I read “Shorter American Memory” for another class this semester and found it to be an incredible reading experience, and so considered adding the piece to our suggested reading list based on a tenuous similarity to the writing process Katherine Hayles describes in her chapter on “The Humument” -- Rosmarie Waldrop crafted “Shorter American Memory” by undertaking what she calls an abridgement, or collage poetry. That is, working with the text of “American Memory,” a high school textbook on U.S. history, Ms. Waldrop went through the existing order of the text and its chapters -- selecting words, phrases, and fragments either according to certain rules or according to her whims -- to create her own version of American Memory.

More than anything else, my final project seems to want to look like an exercise in form and structure built on a solid theoretical foundation. I've mentioned before on this blog that the theoretical and historical component is about memory in general, and a mnemonic practice known as "memory palaces" in particular. Looking at the site I've built, and the method of navigation, it seems pretty essential that I provide (as succinctly as possible) some explanation of what an memory palace is and what it means to this project. Below I'm including the summary I wrote up, and any feedback (e.g., "no, I still have no idea what you're talking about," or, "okay, I think I have some idea of what this palace thing-y might look like and why it could work as a hypertext") would be greatly appreciated.