bananaphone

DO YOU SEE IT AS A ROOM OR A SPONGE OR A CARELESS SLEEVE WIPING OUT HALF THE BLACKBOARD BY MISTAKE OR A BURGUNDY MARK STAMPED ON THE BOTTLES OF OUR MINDS WHAT IS THE NATURE OF THE DANCE CALLED MEMORY

Anne Carson, The Beauty of the Husband



12/25/48

... I must not think of the solar system–of innumberable galaxies spanned by countless light years–of infinities of space–I must not look up at the sky for longer than a moment–I must not think of death, of forever–I must not do all those things so that I will not know these horrible moments when my mind seems a tangible thing–more than my mind–my whole spirit–all that animates me and is the original and responsive desire that constitutes "self"–all this takes on a definite shape and size–far too large to be contained by the structure I call my body–All this pulls and pushes–years and strains (I feel it now) until I must clench my fists–I rise–who can keep still–every muscle is on a rack–striving to build itself in an immensity–I want to scream–my stomach feels compressed–my legs, feet, toes stretching until they hurt.

I come closer and closer to bursting this poor shell–I know it now–contemplation on infinity–the straining of my mind drives to my dilute the horror by the opposite of abstraction's simple sensuality. And knowing that I do not possess the outlet, some demon nevertheless torments me–brims me with pain and fury–with faer and trembling (wrenched, racked I am–most wretched–) my mind mastered by spasms of uncontrollable desire–

12/31/48

I read again these notebooks. How dreary and monotonous they are! Can I never escpae this interminable mourning for myself? My whole being seems tense–expectant...

Susan Sontag, Reborn: Journals and Notebooks, 1947-1963



I spoke of mystical experience, not of poetry. I could not have talked about poetry without plunging into an intellectual labyrinth. We all feel what poetry is. Poetry is one of our foundation stones, but we cannot talk about it. I am not going to talk about it now, but I think I can make my ideas on continuity more readily felt, ideas not to be fully identified with the theologians' concept of God, by reminding you of these lines by one of the most violent of poets, Rimbaud.

Elle est retrouvĂ©e. Quoi ? – L'EternitĂ©. C'est la mer allĂ©e. Avec le soleil.

Poetry leads to the same place as all forms of eroticism—to the blending and fusion of separate objects. It leads us to eternity, it leads us to death, and through death to continuity. Poetry is eternity; the sun matched with the sea.


Georges Bataille, Erotism