Wavetwisters by Artaud

Artaud

Artaud

The reader must believe that it is a matter of an actual sickness and not a phenomena of the age, of a sickness which is related to the essence of a human being and his actual possibilities of expression and which is involved in an entire life.
       -Antonin Artaud

Taking Another Artaud in hand, the well-informed fringe reader will be struck by its mirror-like similarity to another Artaud, the City Lights Artaud Anthology, published in the early Sixties and superbly edited by Jack Hirschman. If one leafs through the pages of Another Artaud, the visual and structural similarities hold, and if one goes no further, a conclusion might be reached that a rather clever thing has been done. But if one delves into the writing itself, distinctions blur, and one Artaud bleeds into the other.

Antonin Artaud, Rychard Artaud--will the real Artaud please stand? Two men who straddle three centuries and who have battled hard to ward off mental extinction; two men touched by madness exacerbated by drugs and alcohol; two poets, two thinkers, two philosophers who suffered incarceration in penal and mental institutions--at this juncture the comparisons end and fusion begins to take place.

Antonin Artaud died in unresolved torment, and after reading Another Artaud, one is left with the disquieting sense that Rychard Artaud may very well be the reincarnation of Antonin Artaud, and that he has--after much purging--spiritually elevated Artaud's struggle and transcended the darkness. This speculation is, I think, worthy of consideration, as the book in hand will attest.

- John Bennett


Artaud
SOUL OF THE ANTI-POET

Spring into movement like 111 or 666—
it’s all in the wrist.
Take your hat off, and stand alone.
Wipe that smirk off your chops.
Don’t fart.
Salute the sun.
The mucus of life is before you
Eat up!

 


SELF-REPLICATING ROBOTS

dearth decay division disaster
we are using up the planet to create robots
tape hiss follows me
I’m sure a dæmon is eating my wiring


Drawing by
Ethan Allan Davis

 


Artaud
MARILYN MANSON ON THE RAG

Billy Blake wanders in the chartered streets
crying weep weep weep
Sylvia Plath lies in a basement
her cunt full of worms
Williams Carlos Williams crawls
to his Asphodel

Dylan Thomas slashes his eye
Francois Villon thrashes on the scaffold
and the Old Gray Poet
mad blind gay
SEES
all the stars and all the grains of sand
all the bacteria in the shit pile
are children born trembling

 

Artaud Chronology

1941: born in Santa Clara, California, November 21
1941: adopted by parents in Berkeley
1947: moves to Oakland
1959: returns to Berkeley to attend University of California
1960: takes part in SLATE debates, which leads to
the formation of Free Speech Movement
1963: committed to Napa State Mental Intitution
1965: reporter for Berkeley Barb; attends Berkeley Poetry
Conference; meets poets of Peace & Gladness
1967: self-exciled to Alaskan wilderness
1974: after finding the chill in his bones, he establishes
Fourwinds Bookstore & Café in Ellensburg, Wash.
1988: Mind transmission from Sogyul Rinpoche
1996: moves to Pagosa Springs, Colorado, to be near
Tara Mandala Retreat Center
1998: returns to California to caretake elderly parents

 


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