"Art is something which stirs men's passions, which gives vision, lucidity, courage and faith. Has any artist in words of recent years stirred the world as did Hitler? Has any poem shocked the world as did the atomic bomb recently? Not since the coming of Christ have we seen such vistas unfolding, multiplying daily. What weapons has the poet compared to these? Or what dreams? Where now is his vaunted imagination?
Reality is here before our very eyes, stark naked, but where is the song to announce it? Is there a poet of even the fifth magnitude visible? I see none. I do not call poets those who make verses, rhymed or unrhymed. I call that man a poet who is capable of profoundly altering the world. If there be such a poet living in our midst, let him declare himself. Let his raise his voice! But it will have to be voice which can drown the roar of the bomb. He will have to use a language which melt's men's hearts, which makes the blood bubble...
If a single atom contains so much energy, what about man himself in whom there are universes of atoms? If it is energy he worships why does he not look at himself? If he can conceive, and demonstrate to his own satisfaction, the boundless energy imprisoned in an infinitesimal atom, what then of those Niagaras within him? And what of the earth's energy, to speak of but another infinitesimal conglomeration of matter? If we are looking for demons to harness, then there is such an infinitude of them that the thought is paralyzing...
Man was given second sight that he might see through and beyond the world of phantasmagoria. The only effort demanded of him is that he open the eyes of his soul, that he gaze into the heart of reality and not flounder about in the realm of illusion and delusion."
- "The Time of the Assassins - a study of Rimbaud" by Henry Miller (New York, 1946)
Reality is here before our very eyes, stark naked, but where is the song to announce it? Is there a poet of even the fifth magnitude visible? I see none. I do not call poets those who make verses, rhymed or unrhymed. I call that man a poet who is capable of profoundly altering the world. If there be such a poet living in our midst, let him declare himself. Let his raise his voice! But it will have to be voice which can drown the roar of the bomb. He will have to use a language which melt's men's hearts, which makes the blood bubble...
If a single atom contains so much energy, what about man himself in whom there are universes of atoms? If it is energy he worships why does he not look at himself? If he can conceive, and demonstrate to his own satisfaction, the boundless energy imprisoned in an infinitesimal atom, what then of those Niagaras within him? And what of the earth's energy, to speak of but another infinitesimal conglomeration of matter? If we are looking for demons to harness, then there is such an infinitude of them that the thought is paralyzing...
Man was given second sight that he might see through and beyond the world of phantasmagoria. The only effort demanded of him is that he open the eyes of his soul, that he gaze into the heart of reality and not flounder about in the realm of illusion and delusion."
- "The Time of the Assassins - a study of Rimbaud" by Henry Miller (New York, 1946)
first time on your site, happy to see that you posted Miller's words.
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