I’m moving again this week, back into Manhattan, and things have been busy on top of that and probably will remain to be until after Aug. So it may be slow going on the ol’blog here. I do have some new NYC Journal work, but my scanner broke, so that’ll have to wait.

For now I’ll post Beckett’s last poem, “What is the Word.”

WHAT IS THE WORD
Samuel Beckett
for Joe Chaikin

folly
folly for to –
for to –
what is the word –
folly from this –
all this –
folly from all this –
given –
folly given all this –
seeing –
folly seeing all this –
this –
what is the word –
this this –
this this here –
all this this here –
folly given all this –
seeing –
folly seeing all this this here –
for to –
what is the word –
see –
glimpse –
seem to glimpse –
need to seem to glimpse –
folly for to need to seem to glimpse –
what –
what is the word –
and where –
folly for to need to seem to glimpse what where –
where –
what is the word –
there –
over there –
away over there –
afar –
afar away over there –
afaint –
afaint afar away over there what –
what –
what is the word –
seeing all this –
all this this –
all this this here –
folly for to see what –
glimpse –
seem to glimpse –
need to seem to glimpse –
afaint afar away over there what –
folly for to need to seem to glimpse afaint afar away over there what –
what –
what is the word –

what is the word

This poem was found on Avedon’s bathroom mirror after he died – now, this is not meant frivolously, but anytime a poem is taped to a mirror, it inherently becomes something touching and something more b/c it’s glimpsing two people, an author and reader, in a manner becoming a mirror itself. And this poem, well, this poem is moving in that it was Beckett’s last, and after a lifetime of writing, of trying to say what he needed to say through language, the poem shows him at the edge of language’s knowledge, peering into the unutterable, feeling it but unable to speak it, and still searching for more words, for that right word, and this search amounts to “folly.” It’s a beautiful poem of struggle and humility and art, and I think I can see what Avedon saw in it. (On top of Avedon, I suspect Wittgenstein would have taped this poem up someplace too.)

(More on Avedon and Beckett here.)