The Poet Is At The Disposal Of

Take A Commonplace, Clean It And Polish It, Light It So That It Produces The Same Effect Of Youth And Freshness And Originality And Spontaneity As It Did Originally, And You Have Done A Poet's Job. The Rest Is Literature.

I Shall Never Forget What I Saw At The Museum Of Modern Art: In A Spotless Schoolroom, Fifty Little Girls Painting Away At Tables Covered With Brushes, Pots, Tubes, Bowls, Staring Into Space And Sticking Out Their Tongues Like The Clever Animals That Ring A Bell, Tongues Lolling And Eyes Vague. Teachers Supervise These Young Creators Of Abstract Art And Slap Their Wrists If What They Paint Represents Something And Dangerously Inclines Toward Realism. The Mothers - Still At The Picasso Stage - Are Not Admitted.

Since It's Now Fashionable To Laugh At The Conservative French Academy, I Have Remained A Rebel By Joining It.

Nothing Is More Intriguing Than A Still Photograph In The Middle Of A Motion Picture... Just As An Accident Is A Cry Changed Into Silence And Not A Silence After A Cry, Photography Is Speed Rendered Motionless.

A Child's Reaction To This Type Of Calamity Is Twofold And Extreme. Not Knowing How Deeply, Powerfully, Life Drops Anchor Into Its Vast Sources Of Recuperation, He Is Bound To Envisage, At Once, The Very Worst; Yet At The Same Time, Because Of His Inability To Imagine Death, The Worst Remains Totally Unreal To Him. Gerard Went On Repeating: "paul's Dying; Paul's Going To Die"' But He Did Not Believe It. Paul's Death Would Be Part Of The Dream, A Dream Of Snow, Of Journeying Forever.