an email to JoAnne Akalaitis

In an e-mail circa 3 years ago, you mentioned, if memory serves, that you were going to Nova Scottia to see dear friends and look at the ocean. In 1979, one day, my London friend Caroline Murphy told me she was going to Norfolk, north of London. "What are going there for?" I asked, and she said, "To look at the trees."


In Endgame we have this dialogue:

Hamm: Where're you going?
Clov: To the kitchen.
Hamm: What do you do in the kitchen?
Clov: I look at the wall.
Hamm: What do you see on the wall, naked bodies, MENE MENE TEKEL UPHARSEN?
Clov: I see my light dying.


Your remark, "look at the ocean," Caroline's "look at the trees," and Beckett's, "look at the wall" are all poetic equally. If this isn't poetry, then there isn't poetry in the world. No wonder you considered Beckett as the greatest poet of the 20th century