<<  -- 7 --  Jennifer I Paull    'SKY POETS PAINT THE SHELTERED CURVE TO FIND'

Paul Bowles wished to be remembered as a composer, a point perhaps not fully grasped by John Calder. One wishes the latter to be remembered some day for his ability to recognise the literary skills of others, creating Cage-worthy 'happenings' in artistic multiplicity, and his earlier writings rather than his latest tragicomic, confessional, embroidered sampler.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And gaze upon my photos on the shelf.

I think continually of the truly great,
And every now and then of the second-rate.

from Tailgaters -- Robert Mezey

Few are those, whose self-portraits are accurate. Vanity belongs to us all in some measure. The spotlight can be left permanently switched on. The autobiographer does not necessarily search out humility, to seem 'gently projected upon a screen of celestial muslin'.

'My mother said to me, 'If you become a soldier, you'll be a general; if you become a monk, you'll end up as the Pope.' Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.' -- Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)

The subject mirrors what he wants to see of himself most of the time. Self-flattery sadly, lurks within us all. The exceptions are perhaps only of the elevation of a van Gogh or an Erik Satie. Left to them, autobiography would not exist as an art form. Neither was any good at blowing a regiment of Trumpet Voluntaries.

The heart wants instruction in the realities
And pain is expert.

from Couplets -- Robert Mezey

Unlike Calder-the-self-confessed, Bowles hated D H Lawrence's opinion that sex was a magical even religious experience. Like Satre in La Nausea, Bowles dreamed of being within that mystical state or dimension in which the distinctions of gender became irrelevant, even superfluous (though somewhat interesting). Personal awareness and revelation were the ultimate state upon Bowles' curve -- to find. To a large extent, he did discover what he was looking for when he first set foot in Morocco.

'A man must be strong enough to mould the peculiarity of his imperfections into the perfection of his peculiarities.' -- Walter Rathenau (1803-1875) French poet, historian, political philosopher.

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