a further taste of Anais...

[Glorious Amok]

the poets are confused about their roles. they set themselves up as philosophers or men of action. i do not think the poet should preach, seek to convert, philosophize or moralize.

if you live as a poet the poet's duty is to maintain his power to create the marvelous by contagion. if the poet maintains himself inside a dream and is able to communicate this capacity to others by osmosis, well and good. but he should not step out of this dream to preach, to meddle with political and practical constructions. let him remain a poet and reveal magic coincidences and magic possibilities. the poet's business is exaltation and how to impart it.

i feel the poet is losing this power because he is joining the prosaic, the contingent, the mediocre everyday details, the mechanism.

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i realize that some poets have a strong political bent to their writing, but this particular piece of writing speaks to me personally. in fact, much of the works i read by this woman strike me as speaking directly to me, strike me as speaking directly from me, even. i feel as though i should remember writing much of it myself.

do you maintain yourself inside the dream? i long to step even further into mine, long to leave the chartered world behind in favour of all that is ethereal. the dream is pure nourishment, it's oxygen for my soul. i long to create whole worlds sprung to life from my own imagination. to create the marvelous by osmosis and contagion.