Page 101

By Jack Joseph Smith

EXISTENTIALISM I remember reading Genet's, "Our Lady of the Flowers" There was this one moment, which gave me incredable joy-- He was in his cell, and he had pictures - of men pasted all around on the walls. He was deliberately putting himself through painful fantasy. Holding himself from a release; the sperm was seething. After intense pages that churned like hot coagulated blood; he lay back and, made a thought; made a theory, made an idea. "My misfortune is worse than being Hamlet, and not being Prince." He was right. He was, in touch with the truth, and he might of smiled... He said to all mankind what love is. And to see alone without glory is what love is not. It is: Painful for a man to know he is high without an-- audience. That is why most men do not want to tamper with vision, because there are just not enough Throne's to go around:

Original Scan

AI Interpretation

GPT

"Existentialism" finds truth in Genet's mixture of erotic pain, isolation, and thought, then pushes toward a bleak idea of vision without audience.

The passage from fantasy and withheld release into theory matters because it presents ideas as something forced out of bodily extremity rather than detached reflection. The quoted line about being worse than Hamlet because one is not prince turns grandeur inside out, giving misery no stage and no inherited importance. The ending is especially sharp: most men avoid vision not because it is false, but because glory is scarce and being "high without an audience" is hard to bear.

Claude

'EXISTENTIALISM' recounts the 'incredable joy' of reading Genet's 'Our Lady of the Flowers' -- the cell with men's pictures pasted on the walls -- and builds from it a theory that vision is unbearable without an audience.

The poem grounds thought in the body: Genet 'deliberately putting himself through / painful fantasy,' withholding release as 'the sperm was seething,' the prose 'churned like hot coagulated blood' before he 'made a thought; made a theory, made an idea.' The pivot is Genet's line 'My misfortune is worse than being Hamlet, / and not being Prince,' which the speaker endorses -- grandeur with no inherited stage. The closing thesis, 'It is: / Painful for a man to know he is high without an-- / audience,' explains why 'most men do not want to / tamper with vision, because there are just not / enough Throne's to go around,' a sentence that doubles as the book's defense of its own outsider seeing. Source spellings 'incredable' and 'might of' are kept.