I am imbued with the notion that a Muse is necessarily a dead woman, inaccessible or absent; that a poetic structure - like the canon, which is only a hole surrounded by steel - can be based only on what one does not have; and that ultimately one can write only to fill a void or at the least to situate, in relation to the most lucid part of ourselves, the place where this incommensurable abyss yawns within us.
Interpretation
This quote suggests that inspiration often arises from absence or loss, and that creative work is driven by the desire to fill an emotional void.
Michel Leiris reflects on the nature of artistic inspiration, suggesting that true creativity often stems from a sense of longing or loss, particularly associated with the idea of the Muse as an absent figure. He likens poetic creation to constructing a framework around a void, implying that the most profound artistic expressions arise from our deepest emotional lacks and the search for understanding within ourselves.
In practice
In a discussion about the role of absence in creative processes.
Some of my foster families used to send me to the movies to get me out of the house and there I'd sit all day and way into the night. Up in front, there with the screen so big, a little kid all alone, and I loved it. I loved anything that moved up there and I didn't miss anything that happened and there was no popcorn either.
The daily act of writing remains as demanding and maddening as it was before, and the pleasure you get from writing - rare but profound - remains at the true heart of the enterprise. On their best days, writers all over the world are winning Pulitzers, all alone in their studios, with no one watching.
The humblest painter is a true scholar; and the best of scholars the scholar of nature.
Everything we see in the world is the creative work of women.
Writers are lucky. Whatever the mood, no matter the longing, the writer can use his words to connect himself to any world he wishes to visit.
And I was afraid. She frightens me because she can knock me down with a word. Because she does not know that writing is walking on a dizzying silence setting one word after the other on emptiness. Writing is miraculous and terrifying like the flight of a bird who has no wings but flings itself out and only gets wings by flying.
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