Allen Ginsberg on William Blake continues. from here
AG: So, (his) conclusion – “[3] Energy is Eternal Delight” That is to say, energy is not petrochemicals, energy is not coal, energy is not solar, energy is not nuclear, but, as Gary Snyder pointed out linking Blake’s slogan to the ecological debate, energy is eternal delight. Which is really appropriate because he’s talking about energy as unbounded, rather than bound down to coal and matter and vegetable substances. It’s really very accurate in Blake’s terminology. Gary Snyder’s application of Blake’s slogan is really very funny and accurate, when he’s switching the whole debate around saying “Energy is Eternal Delight.” And that it is quality of experience, not quantity of experience, that counts, and so therefore small is beautiful, rather than gigantic monopolistic imperialist is beautiful. In other words small-scale farming is beautiful rather than large-scale banking agronomy, run by Urizen in the Central National Bank of Thought. So “Energy is Eternal Delight”. And that slogan has been applied in the ecological contest as the winning slogan in the ecological slogan contest. Imagine pulling that on (Arthur) Schlesinger – “Energy is Eternal Delight, sir.” – or (Nelson) Rockefeller.
Peter Orlovsky: Yeah, but he would just think oil in front of his head. He’d just close his eyes.
AG: Yeah, of course. Money.
Student: Money is temporary delight.
AG: Well, it’s a very important slogan, because what Snyder and others have proposed (such as) (E.F.) Schumacher, the title of whose book was Small is Beautiful, or even (California) Governor (Jerry) Brown somewhat, (is) that the quality of experience – that is to say, the subjective depth thrill, the delicacy of experience) – is greater richness than the material vastness of heaviness or expansion or quantity of the experience. Like one good fuck is worth twenty furiously uninteresting ones. Or one attentive walk through the landscape is better than crossing the continent one hundred times in airplanes or automobile. Or one poem written with great attentiveness and care, syllable by syllable, is more interesting than a lot of screaming and blathering sonnets. Screaming and blathering sonnets. Or one pictured heart tone is worth a thousand words. Or one tone, one word spoken with heart-tone, is worth a thousand Urizenic explanations. One “Ah” would do the work of much verbal pummeling. So “Energy is Eternal Delight” or “Energy is Eternal Delight. Energy is delight, energy is long-lasting delight.
to be continued