a severe constraint

yesterday, i received a very curious volume from a friend who knows how much i relish (1) well designed books, and (2) texts written under an elected constraint. the book is severance by robert olen butler (2006). the book’s jacket says:

After decapitation, the human head is believed to remain in a state of consciousness for one and one-half minutes.

In a heightened state of emotion people speak at the rate of 160 words per minute.

Inspired by the intersection of these two seemingly unrelated concepts, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Robert Olen Butler has written sixty-two stories, each exactly 240 words in length, capturing the flow of thoughts and feelings that rush through a mind after the head has been severed. The characters are both real and imagined - Medusa (beheaded by Perseus, 2000 B.C.), Anne Boleyn (beheaded at the behest of Henry VIII, 1536), a chicken (beheaded for Sunday dinner in Alabama, 1958), and the author himself (decapitated on the job, 2008). These final thoughts are not a morbid or macabre reflection on death; they are a very distilled way of looking back on life and capturing its essence.

here, the author reads some of his stories on all things considered.