February 4th, 2025
"Poetry lives always under the shadow of poetry."
Bloom once observed, “If any poet knows too well what causes his poem, then he cannot write it, or at least will write it badly.” Barthes, I think, would not object: the neuroticism of the writer must never overshadow the anxieties of the reader. By either formulation we arrive at the same result: an overly sentimental work that leaves the reader out in the cold while the poet or author wallows.
Whether Bloom and Barthes make strange (or hostile) bedfellows is a question for another time. For now, we must only understand that the remedy for artistic anxiety is the same: the abdication of the artist as meaning-maker. In the case of the former, the living artist must concede an abdication of meaning upon death. The latter takes the abdication as a foregone conclusion, part and parcel of the process of releasing the work into the world. In other words, Bloom and Barthes only differ on the timing and manner of the artist’s abdication. But we can take things a step further, for it is clear to us that art itself is a form of abdication—art is a surrender to the immutable aspirations of meaning, an illusory anchor suspended in indeterminate time. The artist’s abdication is the same as that of a king; it is the abdication of authority and of power. This is why there have been no poet-kings. This is how we know that Solomon’s songs are pseudepigrapha.
According to one incarnation of Nietzsche (for he reincarnates as a matter of course), “All poets and writers who are in love with the superlative want more than they are capable of.” Surely Nietzsche felt this in his bones, for who could deny that his very marrow was constituted of poetry? Yet he still errs, for while the simple writer need not be enthralled to the superlative, the poet’s talent—her curse—is to be overwhelmed by the possibilities and profundities that lie between her words. Her superlatives are her natural anxieties; they are her interminable pull towards a neurotic sentimentality. More than any other artist, the poet must live the lie of passion; she must dance with the vampire of her talents. Her exhaustion must come at the expense of her truth. We may reconfigure Nietzsche and say that, in the case of the poet, being beholden to her superlatives, she needs more than she is capable of. Indeed, we must go further still, for in seeking to immortalize her truth, she demands more than her liminal world can handle.
Anyway, with that out of my system—some of you may have seen that I’ll be releasing “News for a Pharaoh” on the 7th, which is this Saturday. Going forward, I’m aiming to publish shorter pieces more regularly, along with updates on what’s ahead.
In that spirit, after “News for a Pharaoh,” I’ll be working on finishing a piece that reflects on what it means to be a strong poet. I don’t know if that will be the next major piece to drop, but for now it’s the most immediate thing in the pipeline.
I look forward to seeing you all Saturday!