Arthur Rimbaud #1

Was it that this twenty-year old wrote the most elegant, fiery, super-conscious, literature-if-not-world-changing poetry of the nineteenth century, ushering in the modern era of Surrealism, Symbolism, Beat and world poetry with just a few flicks of his farmer-boy’s hands, reddish, hanging a little long at his lithe body? His sneer now is legion, his abandoning lit-rature completely and going off into the wilds of commercialism in Africa, while we here see him turn his back, a haunting image… It’s said he called out the name of Allah: Kareem, Kareem! Oh Generous God! from his deathbed. His sister and mother wanted him to die a Catholic. I hope he died a Muslim. It seems he did teach Qur’an in Aden, his estranged father, whom he never really knew, having translated the Qur’an into French. But the mysteries about this seminal figure, not quite as mysterious as Shakespeare, abound. And he probably wouldn’t answer any questions even if we sat down with him now… from The Alone into the Alone.