Page 150 Hunter

One of the Muses is Pearly Blue

I have one set of muses which always comes in threes, very transparent, very feminine, full of brilliance, and very loving and mischievous. Then there’s a rather solemn, overriding muse, that’s definitely overlooker of all the others. And I have some ‘son-of-a-bitch’ muses. ‘Wharf Rat’, basically, is a description of one of the low muses, and yet the Wharf Rat evokes one of the other muses, which is pearly blue. I’ve got this one spirit that’s laying roses on me. Roses, roses — can’t get enough of those bloody roses. (The spirit) gives me a lot of other good lines, too, but if I don’t put the roses in, it goes away for a while. It’s the most prominent image, as far as I’m concerned, in the human brain. Beauty, delicacy, short-livedness. . . There is no better allegory for — dare I say it? — life, than roses. It never fails. When you put a rose some-where, it’ll do what it’s sup-posed to do. Same way with certain jewels — I like a diamond here, a ruby there, a rose, certain kinds of buildings, vehicles, gems. These things are all real, and the word evokes the thing. That’s what we’re working with, evocation. — Hunter (BAM Magazine, 1978)