The Bourgeois Trader in the Wilderness
Rimbaud highlighted the risks and difficulties of his life in Africa in letters to his disapproving mother. “This last expedition has exhausted me so much that I often lie in the sun, immobile like an unfeeling stone,” he wrote. Another trip he described as “insane cavalcades through the steep mountains of the country.” Did the author remember that in “A Season in Hell,” he had written what now seems like an ode to the very landscape he was complaining about? “I loved desert, scorched orchards, sun-bleached shops, warm drinks. I dragged myself through stinking streets and, eyes closed, offered myself to the sun, god of fire.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/travel/where-rimbaud-found-peace-in-ethiopia.html?_r=0
I say that anyone who loves the vile
Deserves it. They adore a life in Hell?
Well, let ’em have it. If they like a pile
Of dried out camel turds and rocks, that’s swell
For them and they can contemplate the scene
While drinking lukewarm water I would spew
Out from my throat. Allow them the obscene
Religions they adopt there with that view,
The frazzled trees and shops invaded by
Ferocious heat, their tepid mug of tea
To sip while learning the Koran. But, My
Oh My, that piss poor life is not for me.
I’ll sit and write my poetry all day
While sipping cups of culture and Earl Grey.