Christal
Cooper
Cooper Interviews James
Lough:
To Make A
Long Story An Aphorism: The Gift
On November 13, 2015, Schaffner Press
published Short Flights: 32 Modern Writers
Share Aphorisms Of Insight, Inspiration, and Wit, 265 pages, edited by James Lough and Alex Stein.
In 2009 good friends and colleagues James
Lough and Alex Stein were in Chicago participating in a panel discussion about
aphorisms in which Stein inquired why there were no anthologies on contemporary
aphorists. The general response was that
there was not an audience for this type of anthology.
Stein disagreed and soon bought up the
idea of doing an anthology of aphorism to Lough as Lough was talking to his
wife on the cell phone.
Lough’s response: “Oh, we
are doing it, all right. A gift like
this doesn’t get dropped in your lap every day.”
The first steps Lough and Stein took in
bringing this anthology into being was to ask the aphorists from that same
Chicago panel if they knew other aphorists, and soon discovered that there were
aphorists everywhere.
The next step was to determine what
exactly Lough and Stein were looking for.
“We
were looking for aphorisms in which the idea was original, phrasing that was
crystal clear and not vague, a facility with language, and maybe most
important, some sort of surprise or humor.
We were also a bit liberal as to what qualifies as an aphorism, and we expect
some heat from critics about hits.”
An example of this liberal definition of
aphorism is Erick Nelson’s poem-aphorisms which some may describe as purists
instead of aphorisms.
“Some
readers will consider the term “long-form aphorisms” to be an oxymorn, but
there’s a long history of aphorists writing paragraphs and calling them
aphorisms: Kafka, Kierkegaard,
Nietzsche, and Cioran to name a few.”
Kafka
Kierkegaard
Nietzsche
Cioran
The third step was to make the final
decisions of which Aphorists’ work to use and which particular aphorisms they
would choose from that work.
“That took a lot of
phone time between Alex and me working and editing together over the phone.”
Lough and Stein also required each aphorist to
write a illuminating and fun short essay of what aphorisms meant to each
aphorist and what it means to him or her as a genre.
“We got a wide variety
of essays, both personal and theoretical, and we really enjoyed reading and
editing the essays. We also think this may help the book have value to teachers
and professors in the classroom.”
The book was completed in 2012, but it
took three years of rejections and sitting on editors’ desks before it was
finally accepted by Schaffner Press.
“Schaffner Press has
been nothing but helpful and agreeable in the creation and design of the book.” http://www.schaffnerpress.com
Below are photographs of each of the 32 contributors along with his or her contact information and one of their numerous aphorisms featured in the book.
Lily
Akerman
A
puddle contains the sky.
Charles
Bernstein
Photo attributed
to Dirk Siba
Don’t
confuse the puzzle for the solution, the poet for the poem.
John
Bradley
jbradley@niu.edu
Handwriting,
no matter how shaggy or crude, grows in beauty the longer the creator’s
absence.
Ashleigh
Brilliant
I
find it easier to be a result of the past than a cause of the future.
Steven
Carter
Peace
of soul is denied to us, not because we lead troubled lives, but because we
don’t.
Christopher
Cokinos
A
full moon is only half.
Alfred
Corn
The
beloved body, our own Judas, after so many years of devoted service, hands us
over to death – yes, and sometimes with a preliminary kiss.
Stephen
Dobyns
This
one was kind because he had not yet been hurt.
That
one was kind because he had been hurt often.
Sharon
Dolin
image
attributed to Thomas Sayre Ellis
The
artist performs a special kind of photosynthesis: Like the sunflower, first she creates a tall
flashy flower that then grows heavy with seeds whose small hard shells you must
crack to get to the rich nut meat.
Olivia
Dresher
Life
is a mask hiding death, death is a mask hiding life.
Thomas
Farber
“Source
amnesia,’ as, when you offer a sexual surprise to your lover she asks, “Where
did you learn that?”
James
Geary
Twitter
is @JamesGeary.
You
can never look in the same mirror twice.
Kevin
Griffith
If
a novel is a marriage, and a poem is a one-night stand, an aphorism is knowing
wink across a crowded room.
Jim
Guida
Sending
an email can be like letting go of an animal.
H.L.
Hix
The
artist counts stars through the holes in the ceiling while falling through a
hole in the floor.
Irena
Karafilly
Impossible
not to wonder what Hitler’s mother listened to while she was pregnant.
Richard
Kostelanetz
One
obsession cures another.
Yahia
Lababidi
@YahiaLababidi
Impulses
we attempt to strangle only develop stronger muscles.
Ann
Lauinger
https://www.sarahlawrence.edu/faculty/lauinger-ann.html
http://www.pw.org/content/ann_lauinger
When
the moon in the sea looked at the sky, she was enchanted with her reflection.
Sara
Levine
I
found her remarks so appalling I did my best to sustain the friendship. Not because I enjoyed her, but because I
enjoyed my capacity to be appalled.
Dan
Liebert
Mop
water is a rich consommé of footsteps.
James
Lough
A
clenched fist in flowing water – that is what we are.
George
Murray
As
with the knife, the longer the conversation, the less frequently it comes to a
point.
Eric
Nelson
Happy
memories
Are
the saddest.
Hart
Pomerantz
In
a perfect world the woman would also fall asleep after sex.
James
Richardson
Success
repeats itself until it is failure.
David
Shields
The
novel is dead. Long live the antinovel,
built from scraps.
Charles
Simic
The
snow grows whiter after a crow has flown over it.
Brian
Jay Stanley
The
poverty line has risen throughout history.
The tenants of modern trailer parks live in more luxury than early
Sumerian aristocrats, whose mansions were reed huts with dirt floors. The motor scooters of unemployed college
students travel faster than the horses of medieval lords. Civil War generals communicated by courier,
but now every private has a mobile phone.
Progress impoverishes the past.
Complaints lose power when you think of your ancestors. We decry the cost of health insurance, but a
century ago, there existed neither health insurance nor cures for it to pay
for. I grumble when my air conditioning
breaks in summer, but in ancient Egypt even Pharaohs had to sweat.
Alex
Stein
The
continual struggle of the artist to become invisible in the art – as the soul
is invisible in the man.
Michael
Theune
The
sad promise of stars, which, because so far away, at least seem close together-
Holly
Woodward
The
heart is a wound, the mind – a scar.
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