Which again raises the disquieting question of language and style. Namely, how a poet prodigy of almost unfathomable abilities could forget how to write. How could such a man disable a style and unlearn ancient rhythms- stubbornly resist, as one might water and food…How in short could a poet of genius systematically erase his own life- unwrite it?
-Disaster Was My God, Bruce Duffy
Rimbaud in Duffy’s biographical novel descends from Harar’s uplands on a stretcher, his knee swollen like a watermelon not because of varicose veins- how pathetically he had written to his mother from there, asking her to send him the compression hosiery he thought she could buy in Vouziers- but rather from the bone cancer that was to kill him. Duffy compared the banalities of Rimbaud’s letters home from Africa- published by his brother-in-law, who it was said took many liberties with the texts- to the wildness of his poetry, “the rivers let me go where I wanted…And washed me of spots of blue wine and vomit…”