Yes, I did read the poem about the colored vowels. I have been coloring my poetry too,
if
I get motivated I'll send you some. Emmett Williams always envisioned a poetry printed
in
bright colors and on certain occasions he did just that: attatching rubber stamps
making
the phrase "when this you see remember me" and letting everyone who visited the show
print
the message with rubber stamps on the wall in bright colored inks. I have an example
of it
in a book called "Schemes & Variations" (Hansjorg Mayer). It's a very cool book and my
copy happens to be signed but since the cover was put on upside down I got it cheap.
RA
Patricia wrote:
> Hmmmm, I'm even more out of my element here, as a visual artist, I'm familiar with
> Rimbaud from the Surrealist movement and his association of vowels with colors:
>
> Arthur Rimbaud, Une Saison en Enfer
>
> "I invented the colors of the vowels!—A black, E white, I red, O
>blue, U
> green—I made rules for the form and movement of each consonant, and, and with
> instinctive rhythms, I flattered myself that I had created a poetic language
> accessible, some day, to all the senses. "
>
> Probably inspired John Baldessari's dots.
>
> What I've read of him has been read speedily, sped read, ed., as it's just too much
> teeny masculine angst for me (uh, oh, probly' asking for it here). And what I have
> read has been many years past my teeny feminine angst state, so I have no basis for
> comparison.
>
> However, what goes around comes around, ( or vice versa ) and, Brion Gysin cut 'im
>up.
>
> http://www.uni.edu/~keeley/reality/topy-gysin.html
>
> Ooops, and he was rejected by Dada. I mean the movement. Ohhhhhhnooooooo.
>
> And, quite frankly since I am venting here, I absolutely detested Antoine de
> Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince" and wrote a review so scathing for an English
>Lit.
> class that the professor took it off his list. I wish I still had that review -
> something about masturbating in the linen closet...
>
> Perhaps I had better get back to bed with Marcel now......and Rrose and Vladimir.
>
> ;-)
> PK
>
> P.S. A well written post, Dave, my hasty readings of him just didn't make me want
>to
> pursue.
>
> Reed Altemus wrote:
>
> > David Baptiste Chirot wrote:
> >
> > > Discovering Rimbaud at age thirteen colored all my teen age years
> > > --back then, the barricades of 1968 seemed like Rimbuad's 1870 baricades
> > > revisited--
> > > as i got older, thought Rimbaud one of the few truly great poets
> > > of childhood--
> > > his poetry is not seperate from "Rimbuad 2"--the life--yet
> > > prefigures it--
> > > the life reenacted much of the poetry--
> > > Rimbuad, like his father, had a sense of miiitary discipline in
> > > all he did--"a long reasoned dergangement of the senses" not so much
> > > different from his later fanatical attempts at science, discovery,
> > > exploration, commerce, asceticism--in "exotic lands"--
> > > Sol is right that the dramatic impact of reading changes with
> > > getting older--
> > > Reading Rimbaud now, after thirty years of doing so, i find him
> > > actually more "realist" than "romantic"--
> > > His vision of Revolution in all senses: "Christmas on
> > > Earth"--"it has to be reinvented"--his ideas on the social, the role of
> > > women, the idea of progress and technology, the use of language, of
> > > altered states--etc--the mix of the "primitive" and the "modern"--are all
> > > ever relevant--
> > > The power of Rimbaud's work is the sense of "first time
> > > seeing"--the wonder & violence of a child's seeing--and the attempt to
> > > bring this energy into language, no matter how worn out--
> > > For me, Rimbaud's work continues to be explosive--both the writing
> > > and the life, which are not seperate, but equal parts of a tension among
> > > art and action, anarchy & self discipline, which Rimbaud posed in a more
> > > radical sense than most--
> > > A very interesting book on Rimbaud's life "after poetry" is
> > > SOMEBODY ELSE by Charles Nicholl (Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
> > > 1997)
> > > reverie & revolution--the small child dreaming of Mississippis
> > > while gazing at a gray puddle in a street in Europe--
> > > Rimbaud is one of the great documentary writers--and his
> > > documentation included all states of being that he could embrace--
> > > he attempted facts in areas most often left to fabulists and his
> > > realism was not to be deluded by his own fabulsms--
> > > though his own facts were often outdone, in "later life"--by those
> > > of others--(is Rimbaud a moral--or a moralist--or the two?--as ever, he
> > > poses questions . . . )
> > >
> > > Rimbaud is read differently when one is a teen ager--as most books
> > > are--it takes time to be aware of his questions--
> > > Few ever posed them as harshly--
> > > or presented childhood as realistically--
> > >
> > > --dave baptiste chirot
> >
> > Dave
> >
> > Your defense of Rimbaud is well-taken. I've only recently read him. My only view
> > was to learn something from it. To try it out. I mean what the hell IS required
> > reading these days. Damned if I know! I just hobble along from reference to
> > reference hoping I'm following some path with my reading. I probably shouldn't read
> > at all considering that I'm writing at the same time. Having been a musician for
> > most of my life (completely self taught and never learned how to read music) I am
> > very attentive to the sounds of words and now this is what appeals to me as
> > material for poetry. I've just read Postface/Jefferson's Birthday by Dick Higgins
> > which has some wonderful information about intermedia and poetry in it.
> >
> > It's plain I am out of my depth though in this thread so I am signing off.
> >
> > RA
