William Blake – from The Marriage of Heaven and Hell – 12

Allen Ginsberg on “The Proverbs of Hell” from William Blake’s  The Marriage of Heaven and Hell continues from here

AG:  “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.”  Is that clear?  “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees”?  That’s really true.  There’s a poem of Philip Whalens that exemplifies that, when he’s talking about the Northwestern Forest which for some people are nothing but 275,000 board-feet, cubic feet of wood, at $200 dollars a thousand board-feet, or whatever. [Editorial note –  Allen references here lines from Whalen’s  “The Slop Barrel” –  “….tree, you are lumber/Top-grade douglas fir/At so many bucks per thousand-board feet/A given amount credit in the bank/So that beyond a certain number of trees/Or volume of credit you don’t have to know or see. Nothing”]. And for other people this is a mighty Ponderosa Pine. So, “A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.”

“He whose face gives no light, shall never become a star.” Now, what is that?  How do you make that (out)?  Is this movies? Yeah, it’s very odd.  It could be obvious, you know, you never become a movie star unless you’re really beautiful but, “He whose face gives no energy light, shall never become a fixed reference point for other humans beings in the centuries to come.” – (That’s) one way.  Or just a fixed reference point of energy for people who are living in this time in the classroom..

to be continued 

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *