Antonin Artaud was a playwright, actor, poet, director, and theorist of the dramatic arts. Artaud experienced a number of psychotic episodes at the age of 41, and went on to spend about 15 of his 52 years in psychiatric institutions. Despite his mental and physical afflictions (hereditary syphilis, meningitis, chronic headaches), Artaud was nevertheless incredibly productive in his creative and theoretical work. Below is a poem created by Artaud whilst in a psychiatric asylum. It is at moments rather crude—this seems only a natural consequence, however, given the context and experience which it is reflective of.

A work like this demonstrates the creative impulse exercising its utility in aiding one to cope and to articulate their psychological experiences.

 

There is a Hole in things

that resists classification

and cannot be understood in the terms

that explain it

resists being determined

and cannot be understood as part of a system.

which sodomizes it from behind.

and yet they continue to provoke Artaud.

worth the blood from a dirty needle

and nothingness

is just this stink

from the anus of a God

who is against Life.

getting too close,

don’t need to be surprised or astonished.

of my vital substance by spectral intelligences

that resist being nailed down,

which let loose a battalion of craven ghosts

In reality,

nothing keeps.

just filthy lucre

and that’s nothing new.

and then closes for good.

It’s just too much when you get that near

the rim of the pit,

food for angels.

I rage against the obscenity of God

whose pure spirit is the light of Satan.

– Antonin Artaud