Bahaichap
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PHOENIXOLOGY
A true poet, wrote film-maker Jean Cocteau in 1932, must die several times in order to be reborn. This is what Salvadore Dali meant by phoenixology. Such a poet is on a long and arduous journey; the journeys goal is a raising of his spirit to a union with the beyond where his works, his opus, really originates. Put another way, the poets work is a manifestation of an inner reality, his inner reality, a looking within and a finding God standing within him, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting. In this sense the poet is an intermediary between the world and God; he is a chronicler of the mysteries of existence. Such a poets motivation comes from an ennui, an audacity not to play by the old rules and that spirit of creation which is the highest form of the spirit of contradiction.1 He uses a language which few speak and few understand. He is the servant of that language, of an unknown Force that lives within him and from Which he transmits messages. The composer of film scores has many commonalities with this poet. -Ron Price with thanks to 1Arthur Evans, Jean Cocteau and His Films of Orphic Identity, The Art Alliance Press, London, 1977, p.145.
I rose from the dead so many times
right back to 62 October when
we all sat on the eve of destruction
in that Cuban missile crisis;
and especially back in May 80
when that leaven leavened
my world of being and began
to furnish the power through which
this poetic art was made manifest;1
and, say, 92, when the phoenix
found a burgeoning poetic life
beyond the ennui and the hearts
thin soil and rapaciously made
its season in my fevered dreams.2
1 My first two poems came during the winter months of 1980: June to August, after I was stabilized on lithium.
2 Roger White, Notes on Erosion, The Witness of Pebbles, 1981, p.70.
Ron Price
4 August 2000
A true poet, wrote film-maker Jean Cocteau in 1932, must die several times in order to be reborn. This is what Salvadore Dali meant by phoenixology. Such a poet is on a long and arduous journey; the journeys goal is a raising of his spirit to a union with the beyond where his works, his opus, really originates. Put another way, the poets work is a manifestation of an inner reality, his inner reality, a looking within and a finding God standing within him, mighty, powerful and self-subsisting. In this sense the poet is an intermediary between the world and God; he is a chronicler of the mysteries of existence. Such a poets motivation comes from an ennui, an audacity not to play by the old rules and that spirit of creation which is the highest form of the spirit of contradiction.1 He uses a language which few speak and few understand. He is the servant of that language, of an unknown Force that lives within him and from Which he transmits messages. The composer of film scores has many commonalities with this poet. -Ron Price with thanks to 1Arthur Evans, Jean Cocteau and His Films of Orphic Identity, The Art Alliance Press, London, 1977, p.145.
I rose from the dead so many times
right back to 62 October when
we all sat on the eve of destruction
in that Cuban missile crisis;
and especially back in May 80
when that leaven leavened
my world of being and began
to furnish the power through which
this poetic art was made manifest;1
and, say, 92, when the phoenix
found a burgeoning poetic life
beyond the ennui and the hearts
thin soil and rapaciously made
its season in my fevered dreams.2
1 My first two poems came during the winter months of 1980: June to August, after I was stabilized on lithium.
2 Roger White, Notes on Erosion, The Witness of Pebbles, 1981, p.70.
Ron Price
4 August 2000