Unraveling Secrets: Benjamin Hale on the Mysterious Disappearance That Haunts the Ozarks
BH: That’s a profound question about a subject that fascinates me, and about which there is surely a lot of disagreement amongst artists. I can only speak for myself, and my heart is always with William Blake here: “Note. — The reason Milton wrote in fetters when he wrote of Angels & God, and at liberty when of Devils & Hell, is because he was a true poet, and of the Devil’s party without knowing it.” (I also quote that right before the quote in your question.)
There is, for me, something a little Satanic about artistic creation. After all, Plato bans poets from the Republic. One of my favorite incidental byproducts of this book in my life so far: in that same chapter I also quote a poem, “Late Self-Portrait by Rembrandt,” by a poet and essayist I have been a tremendous admirer of for a long time, Jane Hirshfield; HarperCollins’ legal department made me get her permission to use it, and so I had to email her to ask — and not only did she give her permission to use it, that email began a really beautiful and long correspondence with her.
