tear in half

Almost the only thing I still like nowadays is this process of scraping away. No more stylistic gewgaws. Tear yourself in half or else take the finished poem and tear that in half.

(April 15, 1937, Letters to Marcel Béalu)

—Max Jacob, Hesitant Fire, Selected Prose of Max Jacob (U. of Nebraska Press, 1991), translated and edited by Moishe Black and Maria Green.