APHORISM ASSIGNMENT (cliches, axioms and spin-ner-esque
language also welcome)
Sonnet
The way the world is not Astonished at you It doesn't blink a leaf When we step from the house Leads me to think That beauty is natural, unremarkable And not to be spoken of Except in the course of things The course of singing and worksharing The course of squeezes and neighbors The course of you tying back your raving hair to go out And the course of course of me Astonished at you The way the world is not
A Book Of Music
Coming at an end, the lovers Are exhausted like two swimmers. Where Did it end? There is no telling. No love is Like an ocean with the dizzy procession of the waves' boundaries From which two can emerge exhausted, nor long goodbye Like death. Coming at an end. Rather, I would say, like a length Of coiled rope Which does not disguise in the final twists of its lengths Its endings. But, you will say, we loved And some parts of us loved And the rest of us will remain Two persons. Yes, Poetry ends like a rope.
Improvisations On A Sentence By Poe | ||
| by Jack Spicer | ||
"Indefiniteness is an element of the true music." The grand concord of what Does not stoop to definition. The seagull Alone on the pier cawing its head off Over no fish, no other seagull, No ocean. As absolutely devoid of meaning As a French horn. It is not even an orchestra. Concord Alone on a pier. The grand concord of what Does not stoop to definition. No fish No other seagull, no ocean—the true Music. | ||
Aphorisms
Whatever I take, I take too much or too little; I do not take
the exact amount. The exact amount is no use to me.
*
When one does not love the impossible, one does not love anything.
*
Every time I wake I understand how easy it is to be nothing.
*
Now you do not know what to do, not even when you go back to being
a child. And it is sad to see a child who does not know what to do.
*
Only a few arrive at nothing, because the way is long.
Measurement Fable | ||
| by Rusty Morrison | ||
like water in water —George BatailleEggs, transparent and sometimes red-veined as insect wings, might be hidden in bark crevices or a scatter of tawny leaves. The distance between one gestation and the next, a pleat of the dress I wear carelessly, as if I could sew myself another. Practiced, my tendon-reflex where the tunnel narrows its halo into a noose. I trust dexterity as a kind of nourishment, as I believe my own mother couldn’t. To own, beauty is the first lie of it, and brief as incident is gray thistles turning silver in sunrise as if for my eyes alone. I see you surround me, mother, measuring what my exoskeleton withstands. Embellishment is thin. When the eye inside blinks, its bone-house splinters. No eye inside sky but an insect drone can cause the entire horizon, seasonal as hindsight which follows rain. No death will stop measurement spiraling out, a long ribbon of salt I must choose repeatedly to cross. | ||
No world is intact | ||
| by Alice Notley | ||
No world is intact and no one cares about you. I leaned down over don’t care about, I care about you I leaned down over the world in portrayal of carefulness, answering something you couldn’t say. walking or fallen and you were supposed to give therapy to me— me leaning down brushing with painted feathers to the left chance your operatic, broken book. | ||
The best way to explain what an aphorism is to offer
examples, and as I am becoming lazy and have company this week, 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.
This week's assignment is to gather (or create) several of them, and then
mix and match them to create/distort your own wisdoms.
The work that you read this week is filled with aphoristic
statements (sentences that FEEL like aphorisms). Feel free to follow the above poets as stylistic models. I would like you to start from familiar-seeming statements, but you should rework them into your own brilliance.
