Arthur Rimbaud promised that “other horrible workers will come; they will begin from the horizons where the other collapsed!”
I recently read a post on Patti Smith’s Substack site where she was attempting to teach her interested readers a lesson on writing or reading poetry. One of her favorites, if not the most favorite of her many beloved poets, is Arthur Rimbaud who wrote the brilliant poem The Drunken Boat. Patti Smith religiously invokes the works and significance of many involved in the Romantic Tradition. I commend her for encouraging her readers to involve themselves in what she feels is a very important practice. Now I rarely disagree with Patti Smith. I think she is not only a gifted artist practicing in several genres, most notably her iconic reputation as the original punk rocker of the first rank. She also has written award-winning memoirs, specifically her book titled Just Kids, winner of the National Book Award, a memoir which celebrated her relationship with the photographer Robert Mapplethorpe.
Patti is a most interesting person and I admit to having a great fondness for her. She gets to the edge with her music and travel memoirs. But I do have trouble with the rather pedestrian poetry she writes and sometimes loves. Though she often writes about influential poets and quotes them regularly, she fails to practice what she preaches in her examples of her own and others poetry. It is obvious she believes the great writers have important things to say, but rarely does she provide any examples of their great poems. Or her own. Usually the poems she does cite are inferior, or boring at best. But for the record Patti Smith has a powerful and important presence on the stage when she sings and dances. But when teaching and instructing how to achieve great art take for example the following quotation by young Arthur Rimbaud I lifted from her recent post:
…The Poet makes himself a seer by a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses. All forms of love, suffering, and madness. He searches himself. He exhausts all poisons in himself and keeps only their quintessences. Unspeakable torture where he needs all his faith, all his super-human strength, where he becomes among all men the great patient, the great criminal, the one accursed– and the supreme Scholar!–Because he reaches the unknown! Since he cultivated his soul, rich already, more than any man! He reaches the unknown, and when, bewildered, he ends by losing the intelligence of his visions, he has seen them. Let him die as he leaps through unheard of and unnamable things: other horrible workers will come; they will begin from the horizons where the other collapsed!
In the past I have also used a segment of the above Rimbaud quotation in one of the posts or books I have published. But I also believe in the act of both writing as well as living this way. I practice both. I don’t see this in many of the other poets Patti uses as examples of great poetry. I only notice their famous names. And I do not think many people understand how hard and dangerous it is to actually put into practice what Rimbaud details above. The abyss is not a fun place to be. Putting oneself into jeopardy on the page is threatening and often career-ending. But still some of us continue to promote the words of somebody like Rimbaud as if we believe he is saying exactly what it is we need to achieve as artists and seers. The irony of this is not lost on me at all. In fact, I deplore the idea of not practicing what one preaches. Patti unfortunately is at fault for this one lone transgression.
For example, I recently received on Goodreads a pathetic rating of one-star for my latest book of poetry titled The Virginal of Birds. The person who rated the book won a free copy in a giveaway in which it was made clear the type of reader who should be asking for a copy of this book. This person was not only the wrong reader to win a copy, but she also did not even review it. In other words, she could not offer a single insight as to why she did not like the book. I am sure there are plenty of people who would actually hate my poetry. I get it. Especially believers with a strong religious bent, or individuals intolerant of people who are different from them, or afraid of death and dying, or citizens uncomfortable within the skins of their own sexuality. But I want to know why. I want readers of my books to have the crust to come clean and express their opinions. It is a fact that I do enjoy hearing from readers who actually like and appreciate my work. But their liking it, or not, is not critical to me to further engage myself in creating it. I am positive of my own perfection in achieving, as Rimbaud declared, “a long, gigantic and rational derangement of all the senses. All forms of love, suffering, and madness…all poisons in himself and…torture where he needs all his faith, all his super-human strength, where he becomes among all men the great patient, the great criminal, the one accursed…because he reaches the unknown!”
Of course, there are significant writers like this who have come before those of us writing today. Emily Dickinson, Wallace Stevens, Anais Nin, Cormac McCarthy, Mary MacLane, Jack Gilbert, Henry Miller, to name just a few, as well as a host of others. Writers who possess the courage as Rimbaud suggests who will “die as he leaps through unheard of and unnamable things…” Arthur Rimbaud also promised that “other horrible workers will come; they will begin from the horizons where the other collapsed!” And that is where we, the rationally deranged, also enter onto the lonely stage.
I think more people need to realize it’s ok to criticize an artist we also love. Artists are humans as well. That being said, I’m really excited to learn that Patti smith has a substack!
My take is that you write about things that captivate you including darkness and fear. You must work to keep your courage until the end. Re Patti her life is the poem that many of us could never survive. She is the poem and it is hers alone and I cannot say a word against her^^