A Visionary Infection
Trakl is leading us somewhere he does not know himself. The image is a lure only, asking to be followed, nothing is definitive… We see the image not as a dead thing, a finite picture but perhaps more as a cinematic image lacking a definable boundary, forever replayed in our minds. The desperate search for a bearable reality through poetic remoulding of existence creates, in Trakl’s eyes, a need for purification of some kind from what he sees as the pestilence of mankind… Trakl is the supreme modern exponent of the visionary impulse. Through him we have arrived at a place in poetry where it seems impossible to go any further, at least in the one direction he steered in. He got further down that road than anyone else, before or since, but when he finally broke down no-one could reach him.
The poet Will Stone examines the ‘anatomy of movement’ in the work of Georg Trakl.
Shepperton Babylon
Via Max Nathan, The Secret Life of Shepperton, a photo essay and assembly of Ballardian texts: “We’ve combined our pictures with text from Ballard’s own novels, autobiography, interviews and other text about the town and its history. In the process we’ve shamelessly taken inspiration from Patrick Keiller, Chris Marker, Iain Sinclair and many others.” Related: […]