Group Assignment

Please post the classes' answers here.

Thank you,
Sal

A Little Bit More On the Power of Words

Check this out if you are so inclined...if you want a soundtrack for the dancing mind:

http://www.prisonartsstl.org/

Best,

AK

Poems

Please place your Poems here...

Also here are some thoughts on the Spontaneous Prose Method.

Among the writings he set down specifically about his Spontaneous Prose method, the most concise would be Belief and Technique for Modern Prose, a list of thirty "essentials."

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for your own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside your own house
4. Be in love with your life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow Roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars, and in the middle, you see the blue center-light pop, and everybody goes ahh..." —from On the Road

Some believed that at times Kerouac's writing technique did not produce lively or energetic prose.

Thinking tonight...

Thinking tonight--but looking at the birds flying south--I could not escape our class today, and I just don't know what to think. But I do think that I am rushing, that I am not listening closely enough to you, that I am panicking because I am not worthy of the offering that are your thoughts...whatever, the case maybe, I wanted to let you know that I would truly love to hear from you about your thoughts regarding our time in American Studies and what I can do better as a teacher--as a person who prepares the initial questions that set our dialogues in motion. 

On a blogging note, I would encourage to you to do the following--or I give you the following for clarity's sake:

1.) I think it would be beneficial to look up the word holy.

2.) If you are looking for a length, I would say between 400-600 words, I don't know how you would be able to dig into a question successfully with less.

3.) Write with your heart and edit with your head.

4.) Something you feel will find its own form.

A lost thought from The Miracle of Castel di Sangro:

"Years have gone by and I have finally learned to accept myself for who I am: a beggar for good football. I go about the world, hand outstretched, and in the stadiums I plead: 'A pretty move, for the love of God.'

And when good football happens, I give thanks for the miracle and I don't give a damn which team or country performs it."

I will end by simplifying the offering: I am beggar for good writing, for rich ideas, so I stretch out my ideas and plea, ONE GOOD MOVE...and I thank you in advance for the miracle which will be your insight.

With thanks and gratitude,

AK

For Journal to Blog

Please take one of your journal entries and turn it into a more formal response.

My biggest piece of advice: Think but don't think--first thought, best thought.

I am proud of you all--your thoughts amaze and humble me.

I thank you in advance for all you will teach me.