Tag Archive for 'Lists'

The Shapes of Birds (list exercise)

I was standing at the edge of the water.
I was walking by the water and the water stopped.
I was the water and I stopped to catch my breath.

There were seven herons on the shore.
There were black birds rising from the trees.
There were feathers on the water, grey and brown.

It was lifting from the rocks and branches.
It was a missing voice over the trees.
It was a monstrous shape against the sky.

I looked across the water to the other side.
I looked at my hands and they were white.
I looked at you and you were looking down.

Things I Have Not Considered Getting Tattooed On My Body (by Nathan)

  1. A map of Russia.
  2. A portrait of myself.
  3. A portrait of Jeremy Piven.
  4. A tribal armband.
  5. A tribal neckband.
  6. A band (not incl. KISS)
  7. A bowl of oatmeal.
  8. More nipples.
  9. Your name (unless my mom is reading this)
  10. “I went to Vegas and all I got was this lousy tattoo.  And Hep. C”

Things I’m Not Interested In….by naomi

1. Art
2. Computers
3. Philosophy
4. Music (music has failed me)
5. Cigars
6. Making Decisions
7. Traffic
8. Micro-organisms (anymore)
9. Fashion
10. Methamphetamine

My Aesthetics of Writing…..by naomi

1. Avoid modifiers
2. Reduce everything to the existential horror of the materiality of the body.
3. Use simple language.
4. Stay away from anything remotely gestural
5. The prose surface should never be like glass.
6. All words should be of Anglo-Saxon origin. Latin corrupts. Except in this list.
7. Rack the history of English literature for variations on sentence form and steal them.
8. Do not be interested in the sublime; transcend nothing.
9. Subvert the speaker by using an additional, oppositional speaker that lurks beneath the surface.
10.Expressing nothing expresses everything.