Assignment #8

First of all, thank you for sharing your obsessions today--it was more than illuminating. And I hope you will let each others' processes start to seep past the boundaries of self. And Hanna(h?) and Sara(h!)... feel better please.

READING: A bit this week. The first is the first 25 pages of the Jabes' The Book of Margins--please treat it as if you are reading someone's personal notebook. In a very real sense you are, and much of what you find there may not be of use to you, or may seem opaque. Please please push through (even if you feel it washing over you without sense). We will be discussing his writing, and while I don't expect you to get all or even many of his references or to grasp his philosophy--I think it is necessary to plow through a substantial portion of his work to understand both his passion and the passion many people (yes including me) have for this type of philoso-poetry... in the PACKET, please read 37-45 and 90-2.

FOR WKSHOP: 3/20 Please gloss Amy's, Sarah's, Dawn's, Olivia's and Sam's (Sam please send me yours so I may disseminate it). Everyone else: bring one to hand out for wkshop for the following week. (I know that will change the schedule up a bit, but I think it will work this way.)

ASSIGNMENT#8

APHORISM ASSIGNMENT (cliches, axioms, personal remembrances, and spin-ner-esque language also welcome)

The best way to explain what an aphorism is to offer examples, and as I am becoming lazy and was away this week making girls cry, I'll offer a few off of the Wikipedia entry:

"Usually an aphorism is a very concise statement expressing a general truth or wise observation often in a clever way. Sometimes aphorisms rhyme, sometimes they have repeated words or phrases, and sometimes they have two parts that are of the same grammatical structure. Some examples include:

* Science is organized knowledge. — Herbert Spencer
* Lost time is never found again. — Benjamin Franklin
* Greed is a permanent slavery. — Ali
* Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. — Ralph Waldo Emerson
* Death with dignity is better than life with humiliation. — Husayn ibn Ali
* That which does not destroy us makes us stronger. — Nietzsche
* If you see the teeth of the lion, do not think that the lion is smiling to you. — Al-Mutanabbi
* When your legs get weaker time starts running faster. — Mikhail Turovsky
* Many of those who tried to enlighten were hanged from the lampposts. — Stanislaw Jerzy Lec
* The psychology of committees is a special case of the psychology of mobs. — Celia Green
* Believe nothing you hear, and only half of what you see. — Mark Twain
* It is better to be hated for what one is, than loved for what one is not. — André Gide
* A lie told often enough becomes the truth. — Vladimir Lenin
* Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long. And in the end, it's only with yourself. — Mary Schmich
* Like a road in Autumn: Hardly is it swept clean before it is covered again with dead leaves. — Franz Kafka
* Hate the Sin; Love the Sinner. — Mahatma Gandhi"

Many famous quotes are aphorisms, and many philosophical conclusions as well. Also, any line of song or text that stands complete on its own can be an aphorism (or personal accounting). Examples:

We are the bees of the invisible. -Rilke
For interruptions there shall always be. -Virginia Woolf
I think I've lost a buttonhole. -Steven Wright
All the lonely people, where do they all belong? -John Lennon
Mother please be proud, father be forgiving... -Decemberists
Uncorrected personality traits, though whimsical in a child, prove to be ugly in a fully grown adult. -Robyn Hitchcock
I would prefer not to. -Bartleby the Scrivener
I am not a liar. -Richard Nixon
You were the only man to call me Queen I didn't kill.

Also: Most metaphors are aphoristic--especially the less obvious ones.

This week's assignment is to gather and/or create 21 aphoristic statements, and then mix and match them to create your own 3-aphorism poems (seven of them). The work that you read this week is filled with aphoristic language. Feel free to follow Jack Spicer of Bill Knott (aka Saint Geraud) as stylistic models... or Hart Crane or Edmund Jabes. Each 3 aphorism poem should follow a different strategy of combination. (You can add language beyond the aphorisms if necessary, but try to keep it spare... you can also deform the aphorisms--they needn't be recognizable always as full statements, for example) Feel free, if 7 poems is too fragmented for you, to link them up to make a series poem. Please email me with doubts, concerns, soup recipes...


ALSO: I am reading Wednesday the 18th at 7pm in Seeger (yes Seeger, not the other one). Please feel invited to come and heckle the poet.