Finnegan wrote: >I can almost hear Lehman twisting Ginsberg's famous dictum
into something like "Any thought, best thought."<
In Finnegan's wake, I'd like to bring up a point: First thought, best
thought. I foolishly thought this meant 'write off the top of your head'.
The top of my head is now a demolition derby track, balding, with crash
sites of cancer ops dotting the dirtbrown surface ... But I digress. Back
then, I wrote many a page of drivel on this dictum - until realising one
day that the 'first thought' must apply to 'original thought': the creative
thought based in our subconscious and unique and original to us/me. If we
can get back to this source and write from there we'll get somewhere.
(There's that rhyme for the sonneteer.)
Wasn't it Chogyam Trungpa that first proposed this? I think Ginsberg picked
it up from there.
To quote from BIG SKY MIND (Thorsons 1996), pg 131, Ginsberg talking:
"My own poetry's always been modeled on Kerouac's practice of tracing his
mind's thoughts and sounds directly on the page. Poetry can be 'writing the
mind,' the Ven. Chogyam Trungpa phrased it, corollary to his slogan 'First
thought, best thought,' itself parallel to Kerouac's formulation 'Mind is
shapely, Art is shapely.' "
Regards -
Andrew
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Andrew Burke Copywriting
[log in to unmask] Creative Writing
http://www.bam.com.au/andrew/ Editing
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