been thinking a lot about criticism. and how i don't much like it. art has been spoiled for me. tenth grade art history has ruined a world of paint stone and charcoal. cummings mentions something that rilke wrote in _letters to a young poet_ and i've been thinking about it a lot:

_Works of art are an infinte loneliness and with nothing to be so little reached as with criticism. Only love can grasp and hold and fairly judge them._

cummings then goes on to say:

_In my proud and humble opinion, those two sentences are worth all the soi-disant criticism of the arts which has existed or will ever exist. Disagree with them as much as you like, but never forget them; for if you do, you will forget the mystery which you have ben, the mystery which you shall be, and the mystery which you are--_

i have allowed a school of fine arts to fine arts ruin, but i have left words untouched by the midas molding hands of criticism. i've never taken an english class in college, and i graduate in under two months. i once let myself get sucked into barthes and mallarmé (the first i enjoy a lot and the second...lets just say that i take from him what i understand with humility and admire with veneration what i am unable to understand) the course was held in the latin quarter where once hemingway and fitzgerald came for tea, but it no longer held that magic. it was the anonymous body of the text. the trend seemed to be the death of the author. some held out longer than others before being murdered or committing suicide. all but michaux fell to the sword of nonbeing, and he was ousted with a self exorcism.

i shall swear not to kill, lest love and mystery die as well.