THURSDAY
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Polaroid photo by Edward McKuen, August
2002 ©2002 by Stanyan Music Group. All rights reserved.
A Thought for Today
Love must be the best life has to offer
for most of us are miserable without it.
ROD ON
@WRITING
RIMBAUD’S SISTER
I'm buying your book Intervals for a grad class in
English. I want to include "Rimbaud's Sister" in my class portfolio. Could
you give me some background on this poem? Who is Rimbaud? And is his
sister tending his grave? Thanks, Cynthia Walters
Dear Cynthia: Arthur (John Nicholas) Rimbaud (1854-1891) was a famous
(some might even say infamous) French poet who lived a short but crowded
life. He had a brilliant academic career at the College de Charleville in
Ardennes and published his first book of poetry in 1870. That same year he
ran away to Paris.
Arthur Rimbaud became a wanderer for a while and spent as much time
idling, drinking and carousing as he did writing poetry. His second book
Le Bateau Ivre, published in August of 1871, created a sensation because
of its daring imagery, verbal eccentricities and colorful use of language.
Because of it he became a lifelong friend of Paul Verlaine and together
they began a notorious life of debauchery and ill repute. Together and
separately they created some of the most evocative, intelligent and
lasting poetry in French literature.
In 1873 Rimbaud threatened to end his relationship with Verlaine who
promptly shot and wounded him. Verlaine was arrested and sentenced to two
years at hard labor for the attempted murder.
With Verlaine's imprisonment any stability in Rimbaud's life began to
crumble. When his 1873-prose volume Une Saison en enfer (A Season in Hell)
met with indifference from the literary critics Rimbaud burned all his
manuscripts and gave up literature. He was only nineteen.
He then set out on a series of varied adventures in Europe and Asia. His
travels as soldier, explorer, trader and gunrunner took him to Germany,
Sweden, Aden, Cyprus and Harar.
But wait, there's more.
Out of prison with his reputation somewhat rehabilitated in 1886 Verlaine
published Les Illuminations "by the late Arthur Rimbaud." It had been
written in 1872 when the two were still living together. The book was an
immediate success and to this day continues as Rimbaud's most enduring
work. It has inspired at least three song cycles by major classical
composers and many of my French contemporaries (including Leo Ferre, Jean
Ferratt and Jacques Brel) have used the poetry and prose from Les
Illuminations as text for popular chansons. I myself have wrestled with
the text as a possible song cycle for soprano Marilyn Horne.
Rimbaud remained unmoved by his new found success and only returned to
writing as a journalist with a few scientific essays in magazines. In
April of 1891, troubled by a leg infection, he sailed from Harar to
Marseilles. His leg was amputated and he died on November 10th of the same
year.
Just how much of what I've related here is fact and/or fiction is still
being debated as new morsels from Rimbaud's peripatetic and mysterious
life continue to emerge from time to time.
Rimbaud's sister Isabelle is said to have attended his grave every day
until her own death. I seized on this fact (or legend) as a basis for my
poem Rimbaud's Sister. As for the poem itself, it's one of the few things
I've written that I would never think of revising.
The works of Rimbaud, Verlaine and Baudelaire stand as a turning point in
French literature. They were precursors of the avante garde movement and
like our own Whitman and Poe helped turn poetry from mere rhyme to reason.
The contemporary but underappreciated American 'concrete' poets, Charles
Plymel & A. D. Winnans at their best write in the tradition of Rimbaud.
I hope this helps Cynthia and I urge you to consider the study of Rimbaud
in your classroom. There are several excellent English translations of his
work. All my best to you, Rod.
Join me tomorrow when I clean out all the dark and sticky stuff from the
E-mail box and pass it along to you. Sleep warm.
RM 10/9/2002 10:36 PM PST
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Invest in your country by investing in your friends.
To deny the freedom of the will is to make
morality impossible.
A love that questions is not love.
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RIMBAUD’S SISTER |
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Rimbaud’s sister
still keeps guard
over the evil plants and garden,
letting the rain
do most of the watering
letting the sun
do all the hard work.
Here is the dark geranium
and there is the twisted mum.
Past the tongueless lilac bush
chalk lilies try in vain to bloom.
Violets sans scent or sentiment
strangle jonquils,
snuff out creepers,
eat at the ivy’s underbelly.
Here where dandelion’s Lord
briar now resembles bluebells,
is only passive in the noon.
It isn’t the earth
that you feel quaking,
merely the roots of nearby trees
sucking up stems through the dirt.
Rimbaud’s sister arrives by taxi
always late in the afternoon
to give honeysuckle comeuppance
and laugh at the cactus’ open wound.
She’s as mad as the crabgrass now
pulling the rhubarb out by its guts,
thrusting her hoe
in the heart of daisies,
teasing anemones out of their stalks.
Passing the gate
you can watch the hedge
strike at the willow bending over
inexcusable in its race
to strip branch bare
before its time.
And that mad cackling?
Rimbaud’s sister
urging the crabgrass not to be passive.
Take over the clover
once and for always.
Rimbaud picked a guardian angel
perfect for his purpose.
Who else could tromp
the zinnias so well
or sprinkle salt on the crocus?
She ministers to the aster’s arthritis
giving it whiskey by the glass
and never a bird escapes the poison
she scatters to stop the daylily spread.
Those gnarled limbs
set out in a row
were part of an orchard once
before she scraped their bark
to the bone,
kissed their buds with her foul lips
and kicked their shins
till the sap ran out.
Cultivate thorns and not the rose.
Starve the plant so the weed can grow.
She dries pussy willow buds
soaks them in sugar and arsenic
a feed for the vermin
gnawing the hearts
of sunflower corpses.
Hear her giggle as the rats fall over,
staggering like a domino set up
in Japanese competition.
Rimbaud’s sister
keeps his garden
the way it ought to be kept
while he sleeps on through the ages
reputation intact.
-from "Intervals", 1986 |
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