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 spirm 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' recalls the 'incredable joy' of reading Genet's 'Our Lady of the Flowers', the prisoner in his cell with 'pictures / of men pasted all around on the walls', who holds himself from release while 'the spirm was seething' and then 'made a thought, made a theory, made an idea.' It quotes 'My misfortune is worse than being Hamlet, / and not being Prince.' and ends on why men avoid vision.

The prose poem roots thinking in bodily extremity: theory is what the withheld body produces. Genet's Hamlet line becomes the speaker's thesis that it is 'Painful for a man to know he is high without an - / audience', and the ironic close, 'there are just not / enough Throne's to go around:', turns scarcity of glory into the reason most people refuse vision.