Roger Humes says: maxima proposition was part of a continuation of an examination of "terseness" in verse. A few years ago I had been working for quite some time exploring lengthily narrative in my work which culminated with the book There Sings No Bird, a modern Western version of the Arabic legend of Majnun and Layla.
At that time I discovered that anything else I attempted to write in that style was merely a rehashing of what I had previously created. In an attempt to break out of that rut I radically changed my style, making my lines "sparse" with only one to two words per line. This resulted in my illustrated volume on death and aging, after the visitation.
Next, I carried the brevity one step further in producing a series of one line poems that became maxima propositio; i.e., the greatest premise or proverb. This work was initially published as an e-book pamphlet.
For a number of years I have also worked with computer graphic art. This led me to explore using video with my poetry, resulting in the maxima propositio piece. The text is the same used in the e-book, only with a fractal background and soundtrack added to words scrolling from various positions in different colors and fonts.
I have no idea if the work is "successful" or not. All I can avow is that for me it fulfilled the need my creativity required at that moment. I hope you find viewing it as compelling as I did the creation process.
Roger Humes is a poet, musician, and computer graphic artist. He is the Director of The Other Voices International Project, a cyber-anthology of world poetry, and the International Poetry Editor for Harvest International, an annual arts and literature magazine produced by the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. He has released two collections of poetry, There Sings No Bird and after the visitation, as well as an e-book version of maxima propositio. All are available at stores.lulu.com/electrato. Humes lives in Claremont, California.
