The Blue Mountain Review Issue 13

Of the Eighteenth Century, along with the rise Of capitalism and scientific method, the logical Foundations of Western thought decayed and fell apart.

When they fell apart, poets were left With emotions and experiences, and with no way To examine them. At this time, poets and men Of genius began to go mad. Gray went mad. Collins Went mad. Kit Smart was mad. William Blake surely Was a madman. Coleridge was a drug addict, with severe Depression. My friend Hart Crane died mad. My friend Ezra Pound is mad. But you will not go mad; you will grow up To become happy, sentimental old college professors, Because they were men of genius, and you Are not; and the ideas which were vital To them are mere amusement to you. I will not Go mad, because I have understood those ideas ....”

He drank wine and smoked his pipe more than he should; In the end his doctors in order to prolong life Were forced to cut away most of his tongue.

That was their business. As far as he was concerned Suffering was life’s penalty; wisdom armed one Against madness; speech was temporary; poetry was truth.

XXI. Conclusion Essaying to distinguish these men and women, Who try to give medicine for misery, From the rest of us, I find I have failed To discover what essential statement could be made About psychiatrists that would not apply To all human beings, or what statement About all human beings would not apply Equally to psychiatrists. They, too, Consult psychiatrists. They try tentatively To understand, to find healing speech. They work For truth and for money. They are contingent ...

They talk and talk ... they are, in the words Of a lute-player I met once who despised them, “Into machines” ... all true of all, so that it seems Issue 13 | Blue Mountain Review | 17