76
PARTISAN REVIEW
"Why would a ni ce young person like you ever come
to
Essa–
ouira?" H ave you heard, then , of the Hobos of Mogador? Of the Seven
or is it Nine or El even Los t Women ? I just wanted to stand here and
blaze.
The long lines
"Of
sagebrush and withered grass and tackl ess
ornaments of the seemin gly endl ess but unstructuring desert. The cow
who did not have a face. The dawn of selfl essness. All thi s I found o n
the way
to
you Essaouira but in you I di scovered La Mer, and L a Mere.
Both the Mo ther and the Sea. Histori ca l, as toni shin g, and movin g
words.
I never will go with you to Essaouira. Peopl e and pl aces. Some
people seeming to " fit ri ght in" with evenin g in Nome o r bri ght
afternoons on the Monday luck brokery exchange. But some no t in
Essaouira. Many no t in Essaouira. Many to some mi ght be beller th an
each to be ga thering around. A bold lackada isical strip-minin g effect
clods hubri sti c Cata line mumps from low-streng th stri chnine-ori ented
buildings. The Frenchman didn 't think of tha t. No Frenchman did ! I
did. An American did. Though owin g somethin g to Rimbaud.
Still I wonder wh y the French language whi ch has given to
English its fl exibility in poetry o r so it seems
to
me in and fo r the past
hundred and a lillIe more years why it in itse lf should be comparatively
so limited and una ble to spell out in wo rds wh a t it's ovenurnedlike a
bubbling lexi con ? T here's no probl em here in Essaouira tha t I can 't
solve, or at least fathom, but I know (or feel an yway) th e French
language would be stumping abo ut , in the person of the poet. Ah the
French poet. How unlike Essaouira you a re. How unlike everything
and everybody no thin g and no body is o r are! T hat's one of the grea t
truths from out of the Labyrinth . The G reeks sa id (of the Cretan
buildings) "They just don 't make an y sense!" And so we have the
legend of the Mino taur. What have you given us, Essaouira, of equ al
mythi c humph stature?
And behold and behooey Essaouira answered from th e vowel of the
Earthatorium, " I have given you my rectangul a ted medin a; in a way
the oppos ite of the labyrinthin e pa lace at Knossos. Reason without
disorder. Or within di sorder. So you make up the mythin gs." And so I
said "All ri ght" and am here beginnin g with mouth s of p raise.
Do you know how absolutely marve lous it is to take the Eng lish
language into you r mouth and turn it out of there like a twistin g
hurri cane of irremedi abl y beli evabl y and beautifull y ala rmin g wo rds?
Well I do and have fo r man y yea rs tho ugh sometimes thi s awareness
leads one down into the wors t spo ts of the medina of absolute fear and
