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□Wf W\_Wf,_ Wl few> wF W MBmi K .raw. ■m Jk Wfanm Pktw Iwwe !nsawtw»Disease? Poet Viereck Explains Hotv Wooing the Muse May /">• Bring the Queen of Sheba to Dinner, Cause the A Gold Fish to Stare, and Change Dogs into Lobsters 1 I l/fr/jr' k /’■l /A'sl \ t ill I S' / ’***■**-• XLz~r <5 / i W -'"‘:' ■■ \ *<Oiwk '""' \ ■;. C' ' !; \ ■j. \ I A$ W IM ?WW oteSyxWtA ' y/f ff/ ft / ( s/ l// \ / W WL \ Mr; I I \ y\ r / y; a \ \\ / I 1— Wz £ —\ ’ I > /I I J / aWWi-M • I I *-S If f 't : $W J’uijjil- If VI f I V ijii ' ■'■ lA'i/ J // l“: ■’••ifih I I i Ife J / I T suit of clothes, or a high- ,'/./ I ball —they think of it in iff I \ I terms of verse. If they think I AkA I 1 I *sx. v i of love, the first thing tint l_ ~ 1 1 C " J _ J J" - " VS » J occurs is what word can Ft ’ • * >~s • / • rhyme to love. Their brains y pingle. • Now in the middle ages. * when there were great paint e-s and poets, they did not DOES writing poetry cause insanity? Does wooing the muse drive men insane, produce hallucinations, make Idiots of poets and produce disease? la It the most dangerous occupation ni the world? George Sylvester Vlereck, that shy young poet of whom you may possibly have heard, says so. He declares that writing poetry is more dangerous .han working in a coal mine or a dynamite factory; that it drives men to drink, to poverty, that it destroys the moral sense, makes snobs, idiots and megalomaniacs of many who wield the pen; and that, as it Induces diseases of the mind, it is more to be feared than typhoid. , Os course, Mr. Vlereck ought to know When Mr. Viereck’s Jr st book of poems, “Nineveh,” was published several years ago. it created a tremendous sensation, and to this book, in Mr. Viereck's opinion, have been due the crime waves and taxi cab robberies that swept over New York, V ■ ; x-., Irl <1 - u If ■ ■ 4 ' <3 “Wrote her kitchen recipes in sonnet form." f®? -ZZ However, Mr. Viereck is never more going to write a poem again. Here he tells why: The Perils of Poetry By George Sylvester Viereck T SHALL give up pwnj tor many rea sons. Poetry leads to insanity, for ,Z - //>$ ‘ * one thing; poetry Induces diseases, for another. lam certain that the scientist is right, who says that most liter ary geniuses develop toxins la their blood. The writing of poetry is un healthy; my health has been better since 1 decided to give it up. More-'" over, it befogs . the brain. Most of the men poets 1 know are idiots —I ain one of the few exceptions of my acquaint ance who are not. Os course poets are sup posed to wor ship beauty. Most, as a mat ter of fact. Z i “Byron had convulsion? whenever he heard i—- Kean recite,” of beantv i Papier mache imitation news interest and he will look blankly but n<> ion?P' ODCe wors,ll ipped the reality. at you. The only interest of most poets Mv is * n their own mawkish sentiments and _>>* iivoith > , and ,he Flame" will, in their verses. Now life is the great mis- 1„„ mZl°° d ’ b ‘L. 111 ' last buok of verse tress of human beings—ar. is onlv the saka ™,,, r ,«> WOrShlp Bean,v - Art for art’s mirror. To love the image in the miiror Feems a Jest, literature only a is unhealthy. Few poets anew anvthing sickly mirage of life. My temperament about life a« ra ß O iETh .H m,C tbau apstbetie - Activity, It is horrible to think of a person who ucn. allures me. Brooklyn Bridge can only write; does nothing but write; seems so me a far more mar vellous accomplishment than the most precious of sonnets. If I were not Viereck, I would I gladly be Edison. I some times suspect that I would rather have reared the Met ropolitan Building than writ ten my poem ‘‘Queen Lilith.” The spirit of America has eaten into my heart. Wall Street is more interesting to me than Parnassus. The protagonists of great indus trial combinations impress me more than the Knights of King Arthur’s Table or the vassals of Beowulf. Mor gan himself, so I am told, was a poet before finance en thralled him. If one is to continue writ ing poetry for many years there are quite terrible dan gers he must guard against. Nearly all poets, as a matter of fact, become monomaniacs. They get a fixed idea that they must put everything in t ■ rhyme; they think in rhymes; they almost talk in rhymes. It doesn’t matter whether they are thinking of the menu of a dinner, the description of scenery, a “De Nerval . - . always said the the Queen of Sheba was wait ing just around the corner for him.” specialize. They distributed their interests. Some trak up carpentering, some were engineers, most engaged in practical occupations; thus they kept sane. It would be a great thing for their sanity if poets to-day -would take up addi tional pursuits, chemistry, engineering, farming, the brokerage Business, clerk ing—anything practical. Richard Le Gal iienne recently took up farming. This is an indication of his sanity. As a matter of fact, I know of no man poet who is not In most things a fool— I can make no other excep tion except when I see my self in a mirror. Besides, being solely inter ested in themselves, in im agining that the universe circles about them, most poets are absolutely illiter ate. They are more illiterate and ignorant than street ur chins. Ask a poet about the Titanic disaster, the political situation or any event of / r ‘ ~ who simply draws from his brain color less images that do not exist; who f ceds upon himself, exaggerates his own im portance and sees the woild only, and talsely within himself. It is tragic. Why, few poets read the newspapers; they are more Ignorant of the world than monks in secluded monasteries. Is it any wonder they go insane? Go raving mad? Writing poetry Is worse thafl alcohol. A man who gets drunk on alcohol may get some benefit, as alcohol has a food value. But poetry has no food value. And the man who intoxicates himself writing poetry all the time becomes brain starved. I have seen the brains of poets actually die. ' The writing of poetry unquestionably drives many poets to drirk It many to the gutter I hav? no dotiov the very obsession of poetry drove Poe to take relief in wine, that ’t drove him to wander about, often half mad, and.caused him to suffer incredibly It have been a wonderful thing for ne like Le Gallienne, taken to• * aTl “‘" g hSmR p lt Ella Wheeler Wilcox, IntereB r te p di torills. in ethics and sane newspaper such work would have com pelled him to view sane, healthy life; to realize the re, sponsibilities of life —first of all to himself. Many people tell anecdotes of his borrow ing money and failing to return it. That is very pitiful, and seems in bad taste. Poe’s worst injus tices were to himself; he suffered poverty conse quently. Verlaine was an ex ample of a man whom poetry drove to the gut ter. He was so obsessed with poetry that he be came a tramp; he lost all interest in his person al appearance; his poems are wonderful, but peo ple who met him said that at times it was painful to look at him. Certainly he was not sane—it might have been well had he given up poetry for awhile. De Maupassant who w-rote fiction besides poetry, becamje insane. He thought so; intensely tit the terrible in- visible horror in his ‘‘Horla" that he began to imagine the thing existed and actually pur sued him. 1 can well imagine that ’if I let myself go and continued to write, and thought of nothing but my poetic im ageries, that iu all reality I should begin to develop hallucinations that the spirits of Lilith, Ashtoreth, Nero. Catul lus, Tiberius, the Queen of Sheba and Hadrian were haunting me. If I wrote long enough about the Sphinx, and brooded on the subject with the morbid intentness that some poets give to their subjects, I have no doubt that it would become an obsession. I might develop the hallucination that the Sphinx con fided her secret to me. De Maupassant told Paul Bourget that he often saw his double. Were I to go so far and imagine I saw my double I fear I might then really go mad —from jealousy! I could name many poets who took to drink or went insane. There -was Ger ard de Nerval, who was first obsessed with mysticism. He drank horribly and when ne went, to the gardens of the Tuileries imagined he saw the gold fish lifting their heads from the water and inviting him to follow them into the fountains. Gerand de Nerval became haunted by the imaginary beings he created. He always said the Queen of Sheba was wait ing just around the corner for him. Imag ine my condition were 1 to go so far as to become convinced that the “beast of the Apocalypse,” of which I’ve written, was waiting about every corner for me! As it is. I used to be afraid of the dark; since 1 decided to give up poetry the dark < no longer holds terrors for me. My fear was unquestionably due to an over-excited imagination. Nerval also developed a curious mania. He dragged a lobster about the streets of Paris with him, and when his physi cian. a solicitous soul, objected. Nerval naively expressed his astonishment. He saw no reason why any one should object to his airing his pet —why, he said inno cently, lobsters were more inoffensive than dogs; they never even barked. Re cently a young man appeared in the Wal dorf dining room with a cat on the head of which was a crown of brilliants. I am sure he was a poet —no one but a poet would do anything so extraordinary as take an angora to the Waldorf for lunch. Recently Richard Le Gallienne wrote me a letter telling me of a wonderful water bug he had caught and of which he made a pet. His enthusiasm over the water bug amazed me—l thought he was joking. Other letters followed. He wrote me about his daily observations of the bug, how he kept It in a glass and gave it fresh water daily. He was becoming very fond of it, he said. Then I learned that during this episode he was deeply immersed in writing a poem— fortunately the water bug died; other wise he might have developed a fasci nation for the beetle. He expressed heart broken grief when it died. Poetry has driven many men poets to Suicide. Nerval hanged himself. I have no intention of bringing on such a fate myself, although I have no doubts many i of our younger poets would rejoice at such an act. Chatterton killed himself. Kleist » widely known German poet, did also Many thought of it, even if thev dton°t carry out their intentinn-amonr them tne poet Cooper. Perhan<i n hem been well if‘he had done so ft the writing of himself—he WP " fiaVe kllle4 He wrote wonderful nnoF 6 ” 6^ 1 paresis so mentally unbalaiiclu b J‘ t becamß opium. He dyed hi" I'L at h 0 took t 0 of a few poets to dav w. S ? fn ‘ 1 know » to daj who dye their hair WWW “He became very fond of that water bug.” imagined he was visited by a ghost. Poets develop all sorts of habits they cannot control I know a poetess who worked herself into tho habit of writing sonnets. It became an Irresistible cus- OJi »xy. o . •W' B \ /\ \ jMTliBw 1 H \ / \ \ \/ \ \ n V TS * < l]l I “Dragged a lobster around instead of a dog—because a lobster never barks.’ 1 — 1 J a a ' ,U d ” Ot fireen - One day Baudelaire tried to la^l e bis the Jf hl r faCt ’ despite I,® sta ;pment that he ti! ed u°F s °ftening of the brain, leads me to suspect that he may have had lucid moments. Poetry drives manv poets to drugs. There was de Musset, who drugged himself with a frightful mixture of beer and absinthe; he then Imagined he saw his double and that sounds had colors. He often hypnotized himself with a gilt frame—most of the poets I know do it simply with a mirror. Poets often develop the mania of persecution. They imagine that the critics are always un fairly treating them. Ber nardin de St. Pierre de veloped this idea so strongly that he im agined the people in the street, paused to criticise him. Other poets have had curious aberrations. Schiller, the German poet, usei’ to com pose with his feet on ice. The odor of fer menting apples delighted him. Bvron. it is said, had convulsions when he heard Kern re cite. He sometimes [/ X I I / / \\ I w -X O~ .i 110 WHt// i \ll ? /V / I A r VftvT ( W V “De Maupassant often saw his double.” tom. She was absolutely miserable it she didn’t finish a sonnet a day. I've known her to do kitchen recipes in son net form. Another poet insists always in sitting with his back to the wail and walking close to buildings in tae streets. Once 1 asked him why. "1 am afraid of open spaces," he replied. There is a youug poet iu New York who writes beautiful poems ancui. mad ness. He declares it the most wonderful thing in the world. That rather indicates, however, that he is perfectly sane Considering the dangers' of writing poetry, I think it sould be safer for a person to go through typhoid than to suc cumb to the poetic afflatus. Few poets survive it. So, for the time being at least, I shall write no m< e. With even the greatest of writers, the longer they write the more incompre hensible they become. There is Thomas Hardy, one of the biggest men in modern literature. No one can understand his last work, "The Dynasts." It is a literary mystery. With poets, however, in the course of years they become so mysteri ous, so complex, that no one can under stand their work. Why. 1 found it actu ally necessary to write a commentary in my last nook -’xpir.ining my poems. After 1 write verses I often forget wnat tney mean. I "ivst keep copious notes. Why, if 1 kept on writing poetry until 1 was thirty a book of mine would simply consist ot' one sonnet—the rest would be a commentary explaining it. Recently I wrote a poem. "Pierrot Cru cified.” 1 forgot to make a note explaining its meaning. Ami now, when I read it I am mystified ' can no longer under stand ay own poem. So this is the last 1 snail write.