Pierre began his lecture without showing up. “I am another”: explaining this as soon as contact would have taken some unsuitable time in this circumstance.
He was careful to bring in about 100 slides. With his Nikon, the poet had photographed, late at night, portraits, images from books, photos of places, archeological sites, all kinds of documents. In short, all the material he needed to support his speech and show that his words were not hot air, only a reality, a knowledge that had not always been given the right to speak. Dominique had provided the projector and the screen of the high school and, with the help of a remote control, the speaker would animate with these images the evening.
Pierre discussed several approaches to poetry, several definitions, and stated that he did not want to explain the links between these approaches in a historical analysis of the subject. On the other hand, the listener could well understand that between these approaches there is a customary distinction between descriptive and suggestive poetry.
The first sees poetry as an art, a profession where we juggle words to achieve beauty in form… A hundred times to hand over our work before hoping to achieve it! It is poetry that uses only the second source of knowledge, the intellectual source without using anything of the personal and initiating source. This is the classic poetry against which the Romantics led by Victor Hugo had risen.
The second is suggestive poetry. It starts from the premise that there is an unspeakable, a mystery, a source, a voice that cannot be described but that we can only bear witness to by suggesting what it can represent for man.
Pierre situated his argument essentially in the context of suggestive poetry, a movement born with the Romantics that continued with the work on the dual world, surreality.
There is a common point, unavoidable: the poet does not express his thoughts but testifies, relays a voice, a source that he does not master, that he can only with all his art better know, better translate in the language of men. Of course, one could avoid the question by simply quoting Pagnol’s words in “My Father’s Glory”: “You can’t tell a source!”
But since this spring is present in all of us, nothing prevents us from talking about it, drinking it, mixing the water streams produced by each of us into a long peaceful river. Since we were in a high school, Pierre introduced his subject thanks to an anecdote concerning a student facing a question of French literature at the baccalaureate.
A young high school student in his neighborhood had told the baker where he bought his bread, how the oral part of the French baccalaureate had gone, and the girl, who was depressed, confessed to not having understood Rimbaud’s poem, “le dormeur du val”, which the jury had asked her to comment on.
Pierre had reread the poem, and he suspected that the girl’s teachers had prepared her for only a cursory reading of the poem: to recognize a soldier who had died in the ditch during the War of 1870. It is to see in this text only a document of descriptive poetry, much easier to read among all the other eminently suggestive texts by Rimbaud.
But how could this unprepared girl of her teachers recognize in the words: “the sun of the proud mountain shines” , “a small valley that foams with rays” ,” the light rains”, the description of this well of light that every living being passes through at the time of his death and that the initiated can also pass through in his lifetime when he goes in search of his source of life? How can we fail to see that this text, like the rest of the Rimbaldian work, is part of a suggestive poetry?
In the foreground, Dominique and Laurie nodded in agreement, and their gazes pushed the speaker to back up his words.
Pierre analyzed the work of this young poet who, as a teenager, had also ventured down this road to meet the beauty and wisdom of his soul. Rimbaud is the emblematic figure of the poet, he is also the one who managed best to talk about his encounter with his source of life beyond the light.
Rimbaud in his first poems remains close to Parnassian and official poetry, adopting a classical form despite the suggestive nature of the subject. A dead soldier lies in the grass. The portrait of this dead man is surrounded by images taken straight from a supernatural encounter and without having experienced such a moment, it is difficult to recognize them so much so that most readers remain at first reading and rank this poem among the most accessible texts of the author.
On June 10, 1871, Rimbaud quickly rejected these poems, which no longer correspond to the state of mind of the sighted man, who wants to say more openly what he sees. This means that he did not dare to go far enough in his translation of enlightenment but it also means that he has already spoken about it and this poem “le dormer du val” is indeed one of the rare ones in the booklet “Poesies” in which the poet in the face of the death of this soldier, goes beyond death to attest to this divine light that attracts us to transform and welcome us into our home.
are: “where the sun of the mountain shines”, Peter indicated that for him it is this source of beautiful light that we meet at the exit of the well of light as after having climbed a gigantic mountain and can be proud of its height because this height corresponds to the divine nature that awaits us there…
“a small valley that foams rays”, the small val can be transposed into this double world at the bottom of the well of light, where the carnal envelope lies and foams with rays just like the expression further on
“the light is raining” describe with astonishing accuracy this alchemy of lights between a stronger clarity that is raining on you and rays of light that reflect back into you to lift you up and help you go to the light source. Without these two movements: the light coming down from the proud mountain and the rays that froth from the bottom of the small valley, the approach of the light source is impossible for the soul, hence this teaching conveyed by the initiated masters to have a soul very clean to be able to impregnate itself with this light and reflect it, to make it rise in you in osmosis with the source.
Initiation and encounter with the celestial light are the result of these two inseparable movements that are transposed, corresponding to involution and evolution! The purpose of the latter is to transform our human face under the effect of this divine light in order to give it the ability to rise to join the soul beyond the well of light.
The description is simple but fair, pure, perhaps too succinct for the lay reader, and Rimbaud is right to want to transcribe in his future texts more elements intrinsic to this supernatural encounter.
Pierre concludes that Rimbaud has adorned this dead soldier with the environment of the rise to heaven, gift of the initiated poet and seeing to the dead soldier left in the cold by the men but dead soldier who is already on his way to the peace of eternity.
Nature in these October cold temperatures can only dress the dead with frozen pieces of silver from the stream. The poet is alone in warming the dead and giving him these golden rays of light…
More than the alchemist at work, the poet draws light directly from the source of eternity. When he stops writing poetry, Rimbaud will say: “It happened. I know how to salute beauty today.”
For Peter this may mean that Rimbaud has known the beauty of God’s encounter for a long time, since his very first poetry, that it has indeed happened, but that he does not know how to restore it and salute it to its true value, that he has had to learn it and that now that he knows how to celebrate it, he stops writing because the words become unsuitable for this translation.
From the first poem, there is the fruit of enlightenment, even though others will come to make it clearer and richer in wisdom. But poetry is not about gorging on enlightenment. It is only a moment and after, it is through acts that the poet must change his life, must change his life! This concerns the human evolution of the poet, who, with the message of enlightenment, must manage the development of his political, economic, and social expression.
Patrick, Gérard and Carine, at the back of the room indicated by gestures to the speaker that everything was calm, so Pierre continued his presentation with a little more provocation.
No, he was unwilling or unable to free himself from the hatred that he threw at his society and which limited his expression. He suggested, but only briefly, mixing his message with his sarcasm and criticism of society.
provide a state of transition between the attractiveness of mockery and sickness and the attractiveness of deliverance.
Nothing has yet been decided definitively, and it will never be by the will of the poet. Its message is not reducible to a sense or reason, it escapes the text and makes the reader dissatisfied.
It is not up to the poet to chart a course and mark it for others, but up to the reader to draw it for himself by creating his own poetic language capable of ensuring dialog with his soul.
The poet testifies to the purpose, the meeting and makes it indelibly present, that is all, but that is the essential because from this affirmation that the meeting took place will give rise to a whole series of consequences, consequences that must change life!
The speaker gave his plan: firstly he would briefly talk about the meeting and dialog of the soul for the soul and then, secondly, he would explain further the consequences of this meeting that could change life and thus also society, political, economic and social institutions.
Pierre read in Dominique’s expression a feeling of disapproval, but Laurie signaled to him to persevere and to get to the bottom of his remarks. Pierre admitted that the academic background of the humanities teacher had familiarized her more with descriptive poetry than with anything that could be inferred from suggestive poetry, and he preferred to keep Laurie’s encouragement in mind.
Rimbaud ordered not to publish the texts of his first collection “Poetry” because he did not dare speak about what he saw, and we find in his collection “Illuminations” a more candid description of his encounter with this light of which he spoke about the dead soldier.
The text titled “Mystique” takes up the description of this double movement of light and once again talks about “slope of the slope, meadows, nipple ridge” Now the landscape of light is inhabited. There are angels. The ridge is divided into three parts: on the left, horrors and homicides, and on the right, the line of progress. The band at the top of the picture is made up of human nights that float like sea conques before sailing towards the peace of eternity.
The soft light no longer comes down just to take the dead soldier but carries a principle that changes our world and” makes the abyss blossoming and blue below “.. like the” blue cress” of the small valley all down there on earth…
Peter connected this blue landscape to Paul Eluard’s famous blue orange.
He referred to the pictures of the earth taken from space, that blue planet. The poet assured that he, too, on his return from his crossing of the skylight, went towards this blue orange which bore, at a given place, the fleshly body which he was to join. Blue is also the sky-blue color of Egypt even more beautiful than lapis lazuli and was the royal color of the highest initiates: pharaoh and high priest. Pierre warned the audience that he would come back to this ancient Egypt later in his lecture.
The seeing poet looks from his place of heavenly life, these earthly and bluish landscapes. Rimbaud implies that he is the bearer of this ability to see our terrestrial landscapes in blues. Rimbaud is therefore more prolific in his statement but he does not go all the way! He talks about the left and right sides of the edge, but what does he see in the center?
He speaks only of light but not of the Golden Verb during the supernatural experiment, it is not possible to see the crest of light, to see the abyss blooming and blue underneath as an astronaut can today observe our blue planet, as the illuminated returning to our universe first sees the blue earth and not to meet the Verb, the one who tells you to return to your fleshly envelope!
Rimbaud disdained bigotry and a Catholic religion that at the time supported a royalist political current and displayed the sacred heart of Jesus as if to defend a primacy that republican secularism took away from him.
Yet Rimbaud does not deny the presence of God, but merely implies it, which complicates the endeavor of Rimbaud’s Christian readers to connect his work to the inspired, revealed writings.
In the “Enlightenment” he will speak of God but in the poem “Barbaric” it will be to make a mockery of the image of God that blossomed in his time: “the lodge of bleeding meat on the silk of the seas and arctic flowers”, that is to say these banners in the image of the Sacred bleeding Heart of Jesus whose bearers are for the sight of him like barbarians, to people who understand nothing of culture, beauty and encounter with God.
This is 1873, the year in which the Baron de Belcastel, leader of the Apostolate of Prayer and one of the main promoters of Catholic committees and Eucharistic congresses, coordinated the national pilgrimage to Paray-le-Monial, which dedicated France to the Sacred Heart, as if this devotion could redeem the homeland of the military and civil disasters of 1870 and 1871.
Rimbaud sarcastically covers this divine representation of junk that in no way corresponds to the beauty and wisdom of his personal encounter with God.
Can there be an enlightenment without a touch of encounter with what lives and animates the soul, with the one who speaks to us from our soul?
God speaks, and the poet is one of the first to talk to him, and he tells his readers that they must answer him, too.
Pierre realized that his audience might have some difficulty following him. He preferred to finish with Rimbaud first, before returning to the enlightenment and the place of the poet among all those who dialog with God.
In the text “Lives”, Rimbaud prefers to expose the mission that belongs to him since his enlightenment.
He can be seen on the terraces of the temple. “Exiled here I had a scene where I could play dramatic masterpieces of all literatures. I would point you to the incredible wealth. I look at the history of the treasures you find. I see what comes next! My wisdom is as disdained as chaos. What is my nothingness, beside the astonishment that awaits you?”
The sighted poet speaks but does not seek to proselytize. He merely warns those who do not want to acknowledge his testimony: the astonishment which will strike them at the moment of their encounter with the light, in the last place, when the death of their bodies comes, will be much stronger than all human endeavors to contain the seer in nothingness and reject his wisdom!
Following this presentation of the dimension of suggestive poetry, the public could now discover the nature of poetic work, the ways to find enlightenment and then in a second part, the scope of this evolution would be clarified.
Finally, in a final part, the poet offered to look at some historical examples of social developments and how the poetic message had been obscured, repressed, distorted.
Peter stopped. He paused. Why did Rimbaud only warn his incredulous readers of the astonishment that would befall them?
True, he, too, felt unable to translate the unspeakable into the mystery of the supernatural encounter, but why did he not act? Pierre asked the audience to remember that Rimbaud, like many of these poets who joined the source of their poetry, lived alone. Even the friendship of another poet such as Verlaine did not allow him to fully confide in someone else and it is not probably a Mathilde locked in her bourgeois life that could give her a taste of true love between a man and a woman.
“Rare photo of Arthur Rimbaud, taken by Ernest Balthazar, a street photographer in Paris, November 1, 1873.
Rimbaud at the age of 19 in Paris, after the publication on his own account of the collection A season in hell, in October 1873 in Brussels. In the summer of 1873 he separated from Paul Verlaine who shot him with a gun in Brussels.
How then can we imagine for these poets to get down to work and build a movement that measures the teachings they have learned?
and it is only he, a man of poetry, who must now change life, it is his own responsibility.
and later, when he engages in writing prayers, poems of a religious nature, we will be able to measure the whole path that separates an enlightened person in his purest expression, the most humble but also the most responsible because he asks nothing of God.
What about Verlaine, his prayers poems when he asks Mary, God, for help?
Did he not experience enlightenment, apart from the mistakes of the alcohol-drunk mind, feel so incapable of changing his life?
The example of these two poets may suffice to present the possible human situations in the face of enlightenment.
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The author presents here 2 collections and various texts on poetry. These texts were selected by the author from other documents written since the age of 11 and his entry into boarding school to attend school. They represent steps in his intellectual and spiritual journey. When his initiation was completed, he had the courage of […]
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The location: 1873, after a stay in London with Rimbaud, Verlaine, on July 3 decided to break up and left his friend without a penny in London to try to reconnect with Mathilde. Verlaine called Rimbaud, who arrived in Brussels on 8 July. On July 10, during another violent argument, Verlaine fired two shots at […]
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Speech of resistance to the World Government of the Anglo-Saxon financial oligarchy, organizer of wars to enrich itself ever more! My enemy is finance, said in 2012, a year after the poet’s speech. Why? Upline on January 18, 2011, modified on February 20, March 13, 2011, May 16, 2011, 24/11/2022 for the WordPress presentation. Situation: […]