A week away from my desk and Henri Michaux

I am going to teach at IMAGINATION this week. I always feel like puking before I teach or give a reading. I feel as if I'm not the person who stands up in front of a class or audience. Of course I'm not. And then I think about Henri Michaux. He wouldn't even accept the big literary award in France ( le prix national des lettres) because he didn't want to be interviewed, photographed, or seen in public.

He was such an anti-poet anyhow. He begins one poem, "It's a rare person I see whom I don't want to beat up." And my favorite, "Simplicity," begins like this:

What has been missing in my life until now is simplicity. I am beginning to change, little by little.

For example, now I always go out with my bed, and when a woman pleases me, I take her to bed immediately.

If her ears are ugly or large, or her nose, I take them off with her clothes and put them under the bed. I keep only what I like."

(from Someone Wants to Steal My Name, Cleveland State University Press)