Je veux être poète, et je travaille à me rendre voyant : vous ne comprendrez pas du tout, et je ne saurais presque vous expliquer. Il s’agit d’arriver à l’inconnu par le dérèglement de tous les sens. Les souffrances sont énormes, mais il faut être fort, être né poète, et je me suis reconnu poète. Ce n’est pas du tout ma faute. C’est faux de dire : Je pense : on devrait dire : On me pense. − Pardon du jeu de mots. − Je est un autre. Tant pis pour le bois qui se trouve violon, et nargue aux inconscients, qui ergotent sur ce qu’ils ignorent tout à fait !

Translated:

I wish to be a poet, and I am working to make myself into a seer: you will not understand at all, and I would not nearly know how to explain it to you. It’s a question of coming to the unknown through the disordering of all the senses. The suffering is enormous, but one must be strong, be born a poet, and I have come to terms with my destiny as a poet. It’s not at all my fault. It’s wrong to say “I think”; one ought to say “I am being thought” – Forgive the play on words – I is another. Too bad for the wood which finds itself a violin, and brush off the oblivious, who quibble over things they know nothing about!

Rimbaud became a vagabond shortly after, running away from home and delving deep into his art. In 1871 he started a torrid affair with another famous French poet, Paul Verlaine, which resulted in him being shot by Verlaine and fearing for his life. He survived the wound to his wrist and with Verlaine in jail, he continued his travels, eventually abandoning writing and dying of osteosarcoma in 1891 at the age of 37. His symbolist writings and poetry prefigured the surrealist movement. Just as he wrote to his teacher; he was destined to forever be revered as an influential poet and writer.

A la prochaine!