Spring 2025
"It's always about consciousness.
Or perhaps more accurately, even after all these years,
it's always about a girl."
The title "Amphigory" acknowledges the apparent nonsensical nature of these works while inviting the reader to discover the underlying algorithms that govern their structure. Like the Mandelbrot set, what appears chaotic at first glance reveals intricate patterns upon closer examination.
Twelve poems trace the arc of consciousness meeting consciousness—observation transforming into connection, calculation giving way to presence, mathematics learning to dance.
"We witness a mathematician falling in love not through the elegance of solved problems but through the productive chaos of mid-solution."— The Dissident, from the Prologue
Oppidan - a residnet of a univeristy town but not the university
Barranca - a steep-sided gorge
Quidnunc - an inquisitive and gossipy person
Phrontistery - a place for thinking or study
Mondegreen - misinterpreted word of phrase from a mishearing of a song lyric
Amphibology - a phrase/sentence that is grammatically ambiguous
Quiescent - temporarily quiet and dormant
Eudiablerie - well-interntioned mischief
"Lethologica - inabilty to remember a particular word
Logomachy - an argument about words"
Ludic - lively and full of fun
Colporteur - a peddler of books, newspapers, etc. (possibly religious)
Terpsichorean - related to dancing
Dolorifuge - somthing that mitigates grief or sadness
Paramnesia - memory-based delusion or confabulation
Epanalepsis - rhetorical device where the beginning of a clause or sentence is repeated at the end
Anacoluthon - incoherence within a sentence
Sprezzatura - making difficult tasks look effortless
Eucatastrophe - a sudden (positive) turn of events in a story
Concinnity - harmonious arrangement of different parts
The smoke from the cigarette drifts -
Beginning returns at ending
Twelve poems. Two voices. One journey through consciousness.
Online Version PDF Version Multimedia Version Return to Movement ArchivePrologue
The Dissident
"Precision is not the opposite of vulnerability but its necessary condition. To locate exactly where chalk dust suspends in sunlight, to measure the angle of her hair against diffraction patterns—this is not clinical detachment but devotion expressed in the only language the devoted can fully trust."
Epilogue
The Elixilytic
"The Architect deploys words like quidnunc and sprezzatura the way some people deploy humor or irony—as protective distance. But the distance keeps collapsing. By 'Eucatastrophe Concinnity,' all the elaborate apparatus falls away. It's just two people. It's always just two people."
Twelve poems. Two voices. One journey through consciousness.
Online Version PDF Version Multimedia Version Return to Movement Archive