“What Is Not Self”: Jan Zwicky, Simone Weil, and the Resonance of Decreation

Jan Zwicky suggests that Lyric Philosophy may be read as a “letter to a revered parent—with whom I have quarrelled, but by whom I still wish to be understood.” Though the “parent” thinker to whom she refers is Freud, Zwicky’s conversation with Simone Weil in Wisdom & Metaphor addresses Weil as a “foremother” in the act of making “herself clear to herself.” This paper examines Weil’s role in Wisdom & Metaphor and considers Weil as an influence in Zwicky’s poetry, reading “relinquishing” in Zwicky’s poetry and “decreation” in Weil’s philosophy as metaphors that resonate and debate with each other.