Last class: what we learned

Let’s share what worked for you in the class. What you want more of. Share with one another. I must turn in grades by Monday evening.

Allen Ginsberg’s list of writing slogans

Interesting word, slogans. I’m printing the whole thing which was posted on the Huffington Post  by Amy Hertz who worked with Ginsberg for many years.

 

Two decades’ experiences teaching poetics at Naropa Institute, half decade at Brooklyn College, and occasional workshops at Zen Center & Shambhala/Dharmadhatu weekends have been boiled down to brief mottoes from many sources found useful to guide myself and others in the experience of “writing the mind.” —Allen Ginsberg

ALLEN GINSBERG’S MIND WRITING SLOGANS

“First thought is best in Art, second in other matters.” —William Blake

I. GROUND (Situation, or Primary Perception)

1. 1. “First Thought, Best Thought” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
   2. “Take a friendly attitude toward your thoughts.” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
   3. “The Mind must be loose.” —John Adams
   4. “One perception must immediately and directly lead to a further perception.” —Charles Olson, “Projective Verse”
   5. “My writing is a picture of the mind moving.” —Philip Whalen
   6. Surprise Mind —Allen Ginsberg
   7. “The old pond, a frog jumps in, Kerplunk!” —Basho
   8. “Magic is the total delight (appreciation) of chance” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
   9. “Do I contradict myself?
      Very well, then I contradict myself,
      (I am large. I contain multitudes.)” —Walt Whitman
   10. “…What quality went to form a man of achievement, especially in literature? …Negative capability, that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact & reason.” —John Keats
   11. “Form is never more than an extension of content.” —Robert Creeley to Charles Olson
   12. “Form follows function.” —Frank Lloyd Wright
   13. Ordinary Mind includes eternal perceptions. —A.G.
   14. “Nothing is better for being Eternal
       Nor so white as the white that dies of a day.” —Louis Zukofsky
   15. Notice what you notice. —A.G.
   16. Catch yourself thinking. —A.G.
   17. Observe what’s vivid. —A.G.
   18. Vividness is self-selecting. —A.G.
   19. “Spots of Time” —William Wordsworth
   20. If we don’t show anyone we’re free to write anything. —A.G.
   21. “My mind is open to itself.” —Gelek Rinpoche
   22. “Each on his bed spoke to himself alone, making no sound.” —Charles Reznikoff

II. PATH (Method or Recognition)

1. 1. “No ideas but in things.” “…No ideas but in the Facts.” —William Carlos Williams
   2. “Close to the nose.” —W.C.Williams
   3. “Sight is where the eye hits.” —Louis Zukofsky
   4. “Clamp the mind down on objects.” —W.C.Williams
   5. “Direct treatment of the thing…” (or object.)” —E.Pound, 1912
   6. “Presentation, not reference…” —Ezra Pound
   7. “Give me a for instance.” —Vernacular
   8. “Show not tell.” —Vernacular
   9. “The natural object is always the adequate symbol.” —Ezra Pound
   10. “Things are symbols of themselves.” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
   11. “Labor well the minute particulars, take care of the little ones
       He who would do good for another must do it in minute particulars
       General Good is the plea of the Scoundrel Hypocrite and Flatterer
       For Art & Science cannot exist but in minutely organized particulars” —William Blake
   12. “And being old she put a skin/On everything she said.” —W.B.Yeats
   13. “Don’t think of words when you stop but to see the picture better.” —Jack Kerouac
   14. “Details are the Life of Prose.” —Jack Kerouac
   15. Intense fragments of spoken idiom, best. —A.G.
   16. “Economy of Words” —Ezra Pound
   17. “Tailoring” —Gregory Corso
   18. Maximum information, minimum number of syllables. —A.G.
   19. Syntax condensed, sound is solid. —A.G.
   20. Savor vowels, appreciate consonants. —A.G.
   21. “Compose in the sequence of the musical phrase, not in sequence of a metronome.” —Ezra Pound
   22. “…awareness…of the tone leading of the vowels.” —Ezra Pound
   23. “…an attempt to approximate classical quantitative meters…” —Ezra Pound
   24. “Lower limit speech, upper limit song” —Louis Zukofsky
   25. “Phanopoeia, Melopoeia, Logopoeia.” —Ezra Pound
   26. “Sight, Sound & Intellect.” —Louis Zukofsky
   27. “Only emotion objectified endures.” — Louis Zukofsky

III. FRUITION (Result or Appreciation)

1. Spiritus = Breathing = Inspiration = Unobstructed Breath
2. “Alone with the Alone” —Plotinus
3. Sunyata (Skt.) = Ku (Japanese) = Emptiness
4. “What’s the sound of one hand clapping?” —Zen Koan
5. “What’s the face you had before you were born?” —Zen Koan
6. Vipassana (Skt.) = Clear Seeing
7. “Stop the world” —Carlos Casteneda
8. “The purpose of art is to stop time.” —Bob Dylan
9. “The unspeakable visions of the individual.” —J.K.
10. “I’m going to try speaking some reckless words, and I want you to try to listen recklessly.” —Chuang Tzu, (Tr. Burton Watson)
11. “Candor” —Whitman
12. “One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” —Shakespeare
13. “Contact” —A Magazine, Nathaniel West & W.C. Williams, Eds.
14. “God Appears & God is Light
    To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
    But does a Human Form Display
    To those who Dwell in Realms of day.” —W. Blake
15. Subject is known by what she sees. —A.G.
16. Others can measure their visions by what we see. —A.G.
17. Candor ends paranoia. —A.G.
18. “Willingness to be Fool.” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
19. “day & night/you’re all right” —Corso
20. Tyger: “Humility is Beatness.” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G.
21. Lion: “Surprise Mind” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche & A.G.
22. Garuda: “Crazy Wisdom Outrageousness” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
23. Dragon: “Unborn Inscrutability” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
24. “To be men not destroyers” —Ezra Pound
25. “Speech synchronizes mind & body.” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
26. “The Emperor unites Heaven & Earth.” —Chögyam Trungpa, Rinpoche
27. “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” —Shelley
28. “Make it new” —Ezra Pound
29. “When the mode of music changes, the walls of the city shake” —Plato
30. “Every third thought shall be my grave” —W. Shakespeare, “The Tempest”
31. “That in black ink my love may still shine bright” —W. Shakespeare, Sonnets
32. “Only emotion endures” —Ezra Pound
33. “Well while I’m here I’ll
    do the work—
    and what’s the Work?
    To ease the pain of living.
    Everything else, drunken
    dumbshow.” —A.G.
34. “…Kindness, sweetest
    of the small notesin the world’s ache,
    most modest & gentle
    of the elements

    entered man before history
    and became his daily
    connection, let no man

    tell you otherwise.” —Carl Rakosi

Take a look at what else is going on in Allen Ginsberg’s work.

Final meeting Thursday

No meeting Tuesday July 3.

Our last meeting will be about the experience of writing a story. What did you learn? What went well? What did you like the most? What should we have done more of?

Let’s be on time at 5 and get through by 6:15.