An Excess of Reality

Andromaque, je pense à vous! Ce petit fleuve,
Pauvre et triste miroir où jadis resplendit
L’immense majesté de vos douleurs de veuve,
Ce Simoïs menteur qui par vos pleurs grandit,
A fécondé soudain ma mémoire fertile ...
(Baudelaire, "Le Cygne")
The imaginary river that fecundates the flood-plain in the brain-pan belongs to the simulacral Troy, parvam Troiam, that Andromache builds in the Aeneid, in captivity, after her city was destroyed. I too want to build a parvam Troiam, when I write poems. But why I should feel exiled, or what I feel exiled from exactly, I don't know.
I had wistful thoughts today about the first times I saw a Peter Greenaway film, or a Fellini film, or Jacques Demy or Wong Kar Wai or Almodovar. How paradoxical it is that in their infinitely more expensive medium these artists can direct the most wonderfully frivolous fictions, but in the low-rent world of poetry, frivolous fictions bring down the sternest judgments. (It must be plainspoken, it must be true, it must be serious.)
I protest realism.

(Furthermore, I think I should stop reading the news. There were few books in the house where I grew up, no literature; Cycle magazine and True Story in the bathroom; lots of TV. But my grandfathers always read Newsweek, always with a bilingual dictionary on hand, and a pen to underline the words they didn't know. They also watched television news faithfully on weeknights. Hence the concern with world affairs had a venerable air about it, belonging to the domain of thoughtful masculinity; it was also the most visible indication of an "outside," a world beyond the claustrophobic family. If I stop keeping up with the news, what will I miss? The progress of our occupation? Celebrity antics? Economic reports of debt-distressed chickens coming to foreclosed homes to roost? It might be time for a phased withdrawal. I've heard that if I start reading Tacitus in place of the newspaper, I'll actually not be missing a thing.)