Vincent, Walt, Jesus and Joseph

On this date in 1890, Van Gogh shot himself, dying on July 29. Here's a poem about one of his paintings.

The Starry Night

by Anne Sexton

That does not keep me from having a terrible need of — shall I say the word — religion. Then I go out at night to paint the stars.

— Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to his brother

The town does not exist
except where one black-haired tree slips
up like a drowned woman into the hot sky.
The town is silent. The night boils with eleven stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die.
It moves. They are all alive.
Even the moon bulges in its orange irons
to push children, like a god, from its eye.
The old unseen serpent swallows up the stars.
Oh starry starry night! This is how
I want to die:

into that rushing beast of the night,
sucked up by that great dragon, to split
from my life with no flag,
no belly,
no cry.

______________
I like this Sexton poem--but it's not really accurate. Van Gogh painted this painting indoors, in an asylum, and after reading Walt Whitman. It's no coincidence, I think, that Van Gogh was reading Whitman at the time he decided on this subject for a painting. Here's an excerpt from one of his letters to his sister.

Have you read the American poems by Whitman? I am sure Theo has them, and I strongly advise you to read them, because to begin with they are really fine, and the English speak about them a good deal. He sees in the future, and even in the present, a world of healthy, carnal love, strong and frank— of friendship— of work— under the great starlit vault of heaven a something which after all one can only call God— and eternity in its place above this world...

Here's what Whitman has to say about a starry night in Leaves of Grass:

Press close bare-bosom'd night--press close magnetic nourishing night!
Night of south winds--night of the large few stars!
Still nodding night--mad naked summer night.

Smile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!

I can remember studying Whitman as an undergrad in college, and studying Van Gogh, and never making any connections like this. It took a poetry workshop to point this out.

I know that there's a requirement for every creative writing minor/major to have a required number of literature classes, but wouldn't it be equally good for literature students (such as I was) to take at least one class in intro to creative writing, to see how a thing is made? I've taught as an adjunct at two colleges and am familiar with the curricula at many more. This has never been a requirement. Interestingly, my husband, who studied art, was required to take a class in creative writing.

Anyway, the 11 stars have always fascinated me most in this painting. They're like 11 good disciples around the tree. Or Joseph and his dream in Genesis about the sun, the moon, and 11 stars bowing down to him--which leads to his being cast down into the pit.

I'd better stop--I have much work to do and very little time to think.