Page 35

By Jack Joseph Smith

Literature: You got to be a myth You got to make that flesh and salt Watch it as you make it Impossible: AS SWINE YOU THINK! That8 what to do in life,. see the best of things: That is why it is ok to cut the heads off,. of. those that don't. It is gone isn't it, every second has lost The sky, the land below; you can not sink on purpose, whem you are alive; counterdiction is the only friend you have Imagine Keepler seeing seven of the planits; just in his mind; WELL, HE WAS A BEATEN BOY You want to be tough, worship the cock and cunt; walk away slow, turn, or even gage, then swift... as you can get, rip the throat LEAVE your soul into shame early; later, will have no apeasement. or sorrow, sons and daughters read your life; don't let anybody tell you that Hemmingway., Dostoyevsky.. London and Camue didn't work for the young See those hung by oak and from yardarm Watch you way along the sand and through the dirt: Make your message on twig or from pole. Be a church, be humored by truth, do laugh; love the soul

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

Literature is treated as visionary brutality, where Kepler, sex, violence, and youth all belong to the same dangerous education.

The page argues for literature as a bodily and moral ordeal: myth, flesh, severed heads, contradiction, planets, obscenity, shame, children, canonical writers, hanging, dirt, and church all become part of one harsh lesson. The all-caps AS SWINE YOU THINK, WELL, HE WAS A BEATEN BOY, and LEAVE your soul into shame make the instructions feel shouted and punitive.

Claude

'Literature:' is a shouted, brutal credo for the writing life: 'You got to be a myth / You got to make that flesh and salt,' interrupted by the all-caps 'AS SWINE YOU THINK!' It justifies savagery toward the unseeing ('it is ok to cut the heads off,. / of. those that don't') and prizes contradiction - 'counterdiction is the only / friend you have.' Vision and damage fuse in the example of 'Keepler seeing seven of the planits; / just in his mind; WELL, HE WAS A BEATEN BOY.' The poem invokes the canon as proof literature 'work for the young' - 'Hemmingway., Dostoyevsky.. / London and Camue' - and ends with a paradoxical benediction: 'Be a church, be humored by truth, do laugh; / love the soul.' This reading stays provisional: the page is heavily annotated and needs-followup with crossed-out lines and uncertain margins. Source spellings 'counterdiction,' 'Keepler,' 'planits,' 'apeasement,' and 'Camue' are preserved.