Letters to Cid
9/14/71
Dear Cid,
I am caught up in the studies - I want the depths - so in the morning I read (as close as I can) the Purgatory, and in the afternoon (as close as I can) the Upanishads. Strange while reading Vedantasara thoughts of the fourfold meaning came to me - I worry about the Supreme Identity, especially since it has been my conviction to for go the final identification - altho again it makes perfect sense as our august theory of knowledge- because for Aquinas also truth is primarily in the intellect, which carries with it the knower the known as identity.....
I'm learning many Sanskrit words and this pleases me, seeing many of the roots of our own thru others. And since I've read lots of Guenon I can't be unsold by Deussen, Muller, Colebooke (as it was years ago when I read Muller's translations you know as in Dante translations, essays ok but given modern scholarship they couldn't be superior to us).... which I like also is that a man need not do exercises be psyche to be spiritual - the Sanskrit jivanmukta much like it seems to me the Pauline doctrine: said Christ has come all (in Christ?) line the spiritual life as spiritual men, not hankering after the second coming, except as final state, fullness of realization.
(many words are hard to read so the spelling is off, etc.)
9/21/71
Yes! the daily - years ago I wrote a long (600 pages) prose thing called Diurual (more inclusive than journal because the reach somewhat astral) - sold is to NYU - I don't even have a copy of it - should go over, try to get it typed up.
I've been feeling a little meloncholy these days - maybe I'm taking upon myself too many things - but after all I tell myself why am I here for except to realize as fully as I can intellectual life.
the daily given us
not astrap
seeing thru
as we do
9/30/71
I am greatly moved by the Sanskrit terms mahasamhitah (very much together) and susumna (very gracious) and feel that my work Quadrifaram bears kinship to themeanings signified. Makes us wonder: corroboration not at all that one-sided! Duns scotus comes to mind.... sed vutute intellectus agentis, qui est participatio lucis incretae, illustrantis super phantasmata, cognoscitur quidditas rec, et ex hoc habetur sincertas vera.
Hope to see Clayton the 15th he'll be here for NYU reading.
Sometimes I'm pretty much afraid to walk these city streets - maybe someday, God willing, I'll live near a stream....
10/8/71
Been reading many different things. Last year I studied the principles of astrology and I'm now convinced that Dante's astrology is superior to the whole lot of modern dabblers. A case in point, the extra-saturian planets are but an ad infinitum argument.
Dear Cid,
I am caught up in the studies - I want the depths - so in the morning I read (as close as I can) the Purgatory, and in the afternoon (as close as I can) the Upanishads. Strange while reading Vedantasara thoughts of the fourfold meaning came to me - I worry about the Supreme Identity, especially since it has been my conviction to for go the final identification - altho again it makes perfect sense as our august theory of knowledge- because for Aquinas also truth is primarily in the intellect, which carries with it the knower the known as identity.....
I'm learning many Sanskrit words and this pleases me, seeing many of the roots of our own thru others. And since I've read lots of Guenon I can't be unsold by Deussen, Muller, Colebooke (as it was years ago when I read Muller's translations you know as in Dante translations, essays ok but given modern scholarship they couldn't be superior to us).... which I like also is that a man need not do exercises be psyche to be spiritual - the Sanskrit jivanmukta much like it seems to me the Pauline doctrine: said Christ has come all (in Christ?) line the spiritual life as spiritual men, not hankering after the second coming, except as final state, fullness of realization.
(many words are hard to read so the spelling is off, etc.)
9/21/71
Yes! the daily - years ago I wrote a long (600 pages) prose thing called Diurual (more inclusive than journal because the reach somewhat astral) - sold is to NYU - I don't even have a copy of it - should go over, try to get it typed up.
I've been feeling a little meloncholy these days - maybe I'm taking upon myself too many things - but after all I tell myself why am I here for except to realize as fully as I can intellectual life.
the daily given us
not astrap
seeing thru
as we do
9/30/71
I am greatly moved by the Sanskrit terms mahasamhitah (very much together) and susumna (very gracious) and feel that my work Quadrifaram bears kinship to themeanings signified. Makes us wonder: corroboration not at all that one-sided! Duns scotus comes to mind.... sed vutute intellectus agentis, qui est participatio lucis incretae, illustrantis super phantasmata, cognoscitur quidditas rec, et ex hoc habetur sincertas vera.
Hope to see Clayton the 15th he'll be here for NYU reading.
Sometimes I'm pretty much afraid to walk these city streets - maybe someday, God willing, I'll live near a stream....
10/8/71
Been reading many different things. Last year I studied the principles of astrology and I'm now convinced that Dante's astrology is superior to the whole lot of modern dabblers. A case in point, the extra-saturian planets are but an ad infinitum argument.
When was the last time poets could talk to each other this way, first reading the great works in Sanskrit, Japanese, Latin, medieval Italian, etc?
ReplyDeleteIn conversation with a poet I respect very much I discovered that the first (perhaps the only real) avant-gardists Coolidge, MacLow could read the classics in their own language. I think the point he was making is that before you perform 'language tricks' you'd better be a student of Language first. As Frank Samperi, Cid Corman obviously were.
What's happened to this reverence for real Language, not the "shreds and patches" it's become in the past 20-30 years?
Thank you, Claudia, for posting this wonderful letter to Cid Corman. It got me thinking about the sad state of the poet's craft today.
my first exchange ((via letters (before aereogrammes)) with Cid was
ReplyDeleteTHAT SAME Sept., 1971! As I recall I sent that first letter % New Directions and it was forwarded to Kyoto by James Laughlin. (now
there are et ceteras).