“The most burning part of you remaining: your torment”

Abstract

photo : jenny levine 38 worldliteraturetoday.org O f poetry, art, and thought, I have never expected less than this: a new world— fewer lies, a world more brilliant, worthier ; a reality bushier, denser. Open to higher new possibilities. – Such potentials have for me always possessed, in works of art, the qualities and prestige of the most durable action, an action infinitely less subjected to the simple continuation of the way things are, an action able to resist entropy, decomposition, death. Great beauty always has powerfulness. – Nothing has the power of great beauty. Rimbaud, Mallarmé held, not so very long ago, that the most intrinsic task of poets was to bring into being in their art a fiery beauty. Such beauty nowadays can be seen to be snubbed by abjurors who imagine they have better things to do than busy themselves with such fleshless game: beauty in works of art. – Ponge yet has reminded us that before setting its sights on some glorious meaning (truth, the good, the beautiful, love, justice), a written sentence ought to seek value (arrest, retain, and incline toward itself a desiring) by virtue of certain properties with which a written sentence might be endowed. What can poetry do? Nothing can better establish this than the effect upon us of a few pages of deep and felt truth: a movement tearing us away from the inessentials of life. We return, with the gratitude owed to benefactors, to the small number of books possessing such powers. They hold off the contradictions of our days of absence from life. Poetry transmutes time into full presence. And presence into splendor. Should I have to recommend a few pages to young people desirous of moving discoveries , I would recommend the poems of Sei Shōnagon or Emily Dickinson. Such works offer excellent antidotes to the skepticism one encounters today in so many readers who cannot easily find what they are seeking in the poetry of the time. Sei Shōnagon, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Emily Dickinson, Friedrich Hölderlin, and Arthur Rimbaud give some idea of what one is entitled to hope for in a poem. Nothing stops us from expecting everything from different ways of the world—and oneself. Let poetry want this enough, and other possibilities already begin to form. – That is the way things have been in the deep past of all cultures. Figures of art respond to deep fears. The poem gives a face to presence, to loss. “Great pain, Baudelaire tells us, calls for great ceremony.” Poetry possesses, by right, fundamentally, no less than The most burning part of you remaining: your torment” Jean-Paul Michel One must live like fire. Burn the wretchedness of days. Give warmth and light. – Give. A work of art would be of little value if it were not such an offering of arms laden. “ special section photo : jacques le scanff January–February 2014 • 39 Ex-voto Jean-Paul Michel To the Pursuit, “more than the capture,” To Figures, to Law, to Founders, To Virtues, poem of honor, To the lack of Love, poem of truth, To Fright, poem of being, To Eros, who does not lie, To Seneca, to solitudes, to wisdoms, To Tiredness, a delight following illusion, To smile, poem of kindness, To Solomon, the lustful, the plentiful, the Just, To Siena, to Dante, to She-wolves, To Despair, to Fear, to the Worst, To the beauties of ignorance, to the incomprehensibleness of causes, To Beauty, for what it “saves,” To Socrates, for the portrait of Eros hunting, and the enormous pride in not telling, To insults, a pain that nourishes, To Spinoza, thrice banished, To the Graces, the incalculableness of gift, To Pontévia, who could follow everything, To Jean-Marie Dubourdieu, known as “Gavroche,” for making his life into a game, To Tobacco, a perfect Indian poison, To Light and noise, to real Unknownness, to the Flesh, To the wretchedness of Being, also Luck, To the beauties of Vices, To ignorant Youth, To Max, the beggar, brotherhood, To truths that hurt, To the Scythe, To François des Loges, de Montcorbier, de Coquille, To the Rams of the Heavens, justly named Powers, To Wine, poem of enlargement; to...