bruno munari

Interview with William S. Burroughs

(Originally appeared in Journal For the Protection of All Beings, 1961)
By Gregory Corso and Allen Ginsberg

Gregory Corso: What is your department?

William Burroughs: Kunst und Wissenschaft.

Gregory Corso: What say you about political conflicts?

William Burroughs: Political conflicts are merely surface manifestations. If conflicts arise you may be sure that certain powers intend to keep this conflict under operation since they hope to profit from the situation. To concern yourself with surface political conflicts is to make the mistake of the bull in the ring, you are charging the cloth. That is what politics is for, to teach you the cloth. Just as the bullfighter teaches the bull, teaches him to follow, obey the cloth.

Gregory Corso: Who manipulates the cloth?

William Burroughs: Death

Allen Ginsberg: What is death?

William Burroughs: A gimmick. It’s the time-birth-death gimmick. Can’t go on much longer, too many people are wising up.

Gregory Corso: Do you feel there has been a definite change in man’s makeup? A new consciousness?

William Burroughs: Yes, I can give you a precise answer to that. I feel that the change, the mutation in consciousness, will occur spontaneously once certain pressures now in operation are removed. I feel that the principal instrument of monopoly and control that prevents expansion of consciousness is the word lines controlling thought, feeling and apparent sensory impressions of the human host.

Allen Ginsberg: And if they are removed, what step?

William Burroughs: The forward step must be made in silence. We detach ourselves from word forms — this can be accomplished by substituting for words, letters, concepts, verbal concepts, other modes of expressions: for example, color. We can translate word and letter into color — Rimbaud stated that in his color vowels, words quote “words” can be read in silent color. In other words, man must get away from verbal forms to attain the consciousness, that which is there to be perceived at hand.

Gregory Corso: How does one take that “forward step,” can you say?

William Burroughs: Well, this is my subject and is what I am concerned with. Forward steps are made by giving up old armor because words are built into you — in the soft typewriter of the womb you do not realize the word-armor you carry; for example, when you read this page your eyes move irresistibly from left to right following the words that you have been accustomed to. Now try breaking up part of the page like this:

Are there or just we can translate many solutions for example color word color in the soft typewriter into political conflicts to attain consciousness monopoly and control

Gregory Corso: Reading that it seems you end up where you began, with politics and it’s nomenclature: conflict, attain, solution, monopoly, control — so what kind of help is that?

William Burroughs: Precisely what I was saying — if you talk you always end up with politics, it gets nowhere. I mean man it’s strictly from the soft typewriter.

Gregory Corso: What kind of advice you got for politicians?

William Burroughs: Tell the truth once and for all and shut up forever.

Gregory Corso: What if people don’t want to change, don’t want no new consciousness?

William Burroughs: For any species to change, if they are unable and are unwilling to do so — I might, for example, have suggested to the dinosaurs that heavy armor and great size was a sinking ship, and that they do well to convert to mammal facilities — it would not lie in my power or desire to reconvert a reluctant dinosaur. I can make my feeling very clear, Gregory, I feel like I’m on a sinking ship and I want off.

Gregory Corso: Do you think Hemingway got off?

William Burroughs: Probably not.

Karen Dalton in Paris. Photo by Dan Hankin.

Rues muettes de mon enfance.

Ma i poeti, nel loro silenzio fanno ben più rumore di una dorata cupola di stelle.

« Alda Merini est une comète, un météorite qui n'aurait jamais atterri sur terre, mais l'aurait frôlée de si près, que les êtres sur cette terre en ressentiraient au fond d'eux-mêmes la douleur éternelle... » (Dom Corrieras).

Alda Merini, poetessa dell'amore, di tutte le sue esclusioni e di tutti gli esclusi.

Sono folle di te, amore
che vieni a rintracciare
nei miei trascorsi
questi giocattoli rotti delle mie parole.
Ti faccio dono di tutto
se vuoi,
tanto io sono solo una fanciulla
piena di poesia
e coperta di lacrime salate,
io voglio solo addormentarmi
sulla ripa del cielo stellato
e diventare un dolce vento
di canti d'amore per te.

Ha amato la sua sofferenza, non ha avuto mai paura della morte.
Alda Merini, l'amica di Giorgio Montanelli, Salvatore Quasimodo, Eugenio Montale e Pier Paolo Pasolini, singolarissima e intensa figura di donna e di poetessa, è morta.
Diceva ultimamente di amare la sua vecchiaia ma di non ricordare quando fosse iniziata: "Sono nata vecchia" diceva con quelle sue frasi nude, vere e amare dove la donna vissuta faceva il paio con l'intellettuale.

Avrebbe meritato un Nobel, ma aveva anche detto di non volerlo visto che l'Italia non l'aveva trattata a dovere, tuttavia se fosse arrivato avrebbe devoluto il corrispettivo a chi cura le malattie mentali.
Ci resta - nella sua poesia, cosi' dolorosa perchè specchio impietoso della nostra anima- la sua voce resa roca dalle sigarette e - nelle immagini - quella risata da donna forte che ha saputo solcare il deserto di un manicomio (inflittole dal marito).


« Il faudra sans doute que le visage tourmenté d’Alda Merini s’éloigne un peu pour que l’on puisse estimer à sa juste valeur une œuvre poétique de premier plan. Il est vrai que cette femme, jeune poétesse prodige saluée par les plus grands et devenue leur amie, marquée par la dure expérience de la folie, est devenue une icône de la culture italienne. C’est, en un sens, la desservir. On ne doute pas de l’issue. L’œuvre l’emportera. »

Martin Rueff, Avant-propos de la notice consacrée à Alda Merini dans Po&sie 109.

La sua casa, con vecchi libri, gatti e numeri di telefono scritti sui muri con la penna o con il rossetto, due locali sui Navigli.
Le sue apparizioni, con pelliccia, collane di perle, labbra e parole rosso passione. I giorni neri dell’ospedale psichiatrico e della follia, raccontati in prosa e poesia. E, soprattutto, i versi impetuosi che nascevano di getto, da trascrivere in tutta fretta su un pezzo di carta.
Vogliamo ricordarla così, Alda Merini, la poetessa italiana mai seduta alla scrivania, «nata il primo giorno di primavera».

La casa non geme più sotto lo scricchiolio dei tuoi passi,
la casa non geme più
e datemi i rumori
i rumori pesanti
datemi i rumori di Charles
datemi il suo pensiero e il suo lento fuggire
ridatemi i rumori, della sua carne perfetta.