Poetry

I have decided to add a sub-section on Poetry. Just some poems I like from my teenage or young adult life I think. Sure it’s all French poetry. I got introduced to a few English poems later, but it’s harder for me to connect with, whether it’s about culture, sound or personal history I’m not sure. Because English became prominent in my life (and my main reading/conscious thinking language since about 1996) much later, whereas the main books and poems (you could say that went some way to shaping me) were in my teenage years. Yet, these days, I nearly read exclusively in English, due to the nature of the books I read in a great part, but I feel odd when reading a book in French. Yes I may be a strange by-product of a hybrid culture that was entirely chosen by me. I have no English roots, and have only lived there a year, so I guess, I’m an oddity in that way. Anyway. Enough side-musings.

Also, I’m not sure I read many entire books of poems (and I’m sure I will forget some), it’s mostly about individual poems I liked, most of which came from school, or from my Dad perhaps? The thing is, I have now forgotten most, but I used to know all the ones I will post by heart. Some I had to learn for school, some I chose to learn. There are a few poems I kind of remembered, but I will only post my ‘essentials’.

I can only start with Baudelaire. The only poetry books I think I read are Les Fleurs du Mal & Petits Poèmes en Prose (aka Le Spleen de Paris). Yes, for me Baudelaire is THE poet, the one I’ve connected with the most, the evocative one that was able to tackle moods/atmospheres, reach the ethers and also reflect on the role of the poet. Style and substance, just my type of guy, a richly emotional person (or so I think, but I didn’t know him), who can do both happiness and sadness, ethereal and earthly. So while I’ll post a few (many!) from him, I probably will only post unique poems from others. Also I’ll post links to a site rather than reproduce the poems. No need to retype what other people did in a probably more reader-friendly way anyway. I may make one exception.

Do I have a favourite poem? Probably Elévation. It’s just very evocative. I took my best ink pen to couch it down on paper in my very best writing style, and taped that on my door in both my ‘classe préparatoire’ (think the two-three years post-baccalauréat) years and my engineering school years. Guess it’s not typically what an engineering student would do (but then, I guess I became an engineer by lazy default not by choice, I’m not a very scientific guy and to be frank, while I liked maths, physics was not my forte despite my Mum, and languages and French were really my favourite subjects).

I am straying from the topic again 🙂

I will copy this one in full, though my source (used all below as you will see) is Bonjour Poésie. So yes, it is about escaping from the mundane realities of this world, it is possibly about dreams, but really, it is a poem about the poetry in itself. Just beautiful and evocative.

Elévation :

Au-dessus des étangs, au-dessus des vallées,
Des montagnes, des bois, des nuages, des mers,
Par delà le soleil, par delà les éthers,
Par delà les confins des sphères étoilées,

Mon esprit, tu te meus avec agilité,
Et, comme un bon nageur qui se pâme dans l’onde,
Tu sillonnes gayement l’immensité profonde
Avec une indicible et mâle volupté.

Envole-toi bien loin de ces miasmes morbides ;
Va te purifier dans l’air supérieur,
Et bois, comme une pure et divine liqueur,
Le feu clair qui remplit les espaces limpides.

Derrière les ennuis et les vastes chagrins
Qui chargent de leur poids l’existence brumeuse,
Heureux celui qui peut d’une aile vigoureuse
S’élancer vers les champs lumineux et sereins ;

Celui dont les pensers, comme des alouettes,
Vers les cieux le matin prennent un libre essor,
– Qui plane sur la vie, et comprend sans effort
Le langage des fleurs et des choses muettes !

From there on, only links, so as to not make this a super long page, but you must click and read these. In fact, for best effect, you must HEAR most of them. Read them in your own voice or imagine a French accent if you don’t have one.

L’invitation au voyage. Another one of my favourites. A life/place/love to aspire to. Again very dreamy.

Harmonie du Soir. A little darker and more melancholic, this. It is also remarkable for its fairly unique composition as a sort of ‘pantoum’ (see the repeated verses).

L’ennemi. Not necessarily one of my favourites, but a classic. I’m getting to his darker stuff (moving from Idéal to Spleen) there. About time, a chequered youth and vain hopes.

Le goût du néant. Another one in the same vein. About time, and veering towards nihilism.

Enough of the dark side though, there are a few others from there, but I prefer the dreamy ones. One last from Fleurs du Mal, in a completely different theme from all the precedings.

L’albatros. A metaphor about the (mis)place of the poet among humans, explicited at the end.

L’étranger. I’ll reproduce this one in full below too for the lazy clickers. The opening from Spleen de Paris. Another true favourite of mine, I often think of it when walking the streets of Paris on a mostly sunny day with only a few clouds. A bit of a dreamer’s poem again.

— Qui aimes-tu le mieux, homme énigmatique, dis ? ton père, ta mère, ta sœur ou ton frère ?
— Je n’ai ni père, ni mère, ni sœur, ni frère.
— Tes amis ?
— Vous vous servez là d’une parole dont le sens m’est resté jusqu’à ce jour inconnu.
— Ta patrie ?
— J’ignore sous quelle latitude elle est située.
— La beauté ?
— Je l’aimerais volontiers, déesse et immortelle.
— L’or ?
— Je le hais comme vous haïssez Dieu.
— Eh ! qu’aimes-tu donc, extraordinaire étranger ?
— J’aime les nuages… les nuages qui passent… là-bas… là-bas… les merveilleux nuages !

I’ll finish the Baudelaire section with a couple more from le Spleen de Paris that inspired songs. Which makes particular sense as after all, I only ever started doing the first website and also this one because of music. So do check the songs too, though I won’t link them here.

First up: Les Yeux des Pauvres. Tough one about relationships and reality clashing with idealism, but the main thing is : How Beautiful You Are is one of the great Cure songs off Kiss Me Kiss Me Kiss Me.

And then Enivrez-Vous. A Stereolab song, not musically the best and they just recite the poem over the music, but still worth the inclusion, and the conclusion that we have to get ‘drunk’ on something, not necessarily alcohol in fact.

Right, that’s it for Baudelaire, the rest is likely to be just a handful of poems!

Victor Hugo: Les Djinns. Another very special favourite, a true masterpiece and I was pleased when I managed to learn it by heart. This one really has to be spoken. Its construction is a wonder. Hope anyone is able to ‘feel’ it. From a murmur it grows, in size and intensity, until it reaches a climax and then slowly descends and finishes with a quiet whisper. Absolutely magnificent, and if it’s the only thing you get from Hugo, it’s worth it. Can’t remember if this one was studied at school (unlikely?) but it was one of my brother’s pieces (my Dad liked it too), I seem to remember it being recited at some family event.

On a side non-poetry note, as I mention Hugo. I have not read any book from him. Not Les Misérables and not Notre-Dame de Paris (though I have the vague feeling I started the book). But, there was an excerpt from Les Misérables we had to comment on at school, and it seems like my teacher was so impressed with my essay she asked me to read it to the class. I was a bit shocked/humbled, but it’s gratifying really . The scene was the suicide of Javert. I think it’s just my ability to put myself in a certain way in other people’s emotions, I can feel certain things. Ignore the ‘suicide’ bit, it’s kind of coincidental, I can do happy as well, it’s like The Cure. I feel comfortable with a variety of settings, all that matters is actually feeling these emotions, being able to empathise to a large extent. It can be dangerous because you forget to offer alternative perspective at times when you are so much able to express or feel another person’s state of mind. What do do with that? I still don’t always know, but somehow thinking of Hugo always takes me back to that occasional and possibly pointless ability.

Paul Verlaine : Mon Rêve Familier. Another classic from school. Another dream vs reality clash that ends with regrets and memories of lost ones.

Belated addition, just remembered it on waking up today (28/3/2023) for no particular reason (it was grey not raining, and I wasn’t feeling particularly sad):

Il pleure dans mon coeur. Another classic studied at school and stylistically interesting.

Arthur Rimbaud: Le Dormeur du Val. A different kind of classic (though naturally following Verlaine by Rimbaud….they were closely associated), and oddly i can’t pin it down as belonging to the same reality as the other ones for me. It’s like I came across it later, but I can’t really figure out if it was just a later year at school. Anyway, this one is famous for its composition as it seems to depict an idyllic scene, until the brutal conclusion about war strikes and makes you revisit the whole scene described beforehand. Tragic, but a magnificent work.

José Maria de Heredia : Les Conquérants. I am really trying to add to the list. I remember this one, mostly from my Dad I think, don’t think that was studied at school. I learnt it, but essentially it had a couple of ‘weird’ words and names (gerfauts, Cipango) that made absolutely no sense to me. Maybe that was the attraction. Other than that, ‘does what it says on the tin’, it’s about conquerors of new lands.

Actually I mentioned Baudelaire as the only book of poetry I read. It’s true, but most plays in the old times were in verse, so you can add a few Molières for sure, but I was never such a big fan. Sure L’Avare, Le Malade Imaginaire and le Tartfuffe were among the classics we studied, but I never really connected with the social satire of the time, I guess.

Les Fables de La Fontaine is another one actually. I won’t link, but full of classics too, and excellent, most ‘morales’ are still applicable every day, great work, written in an entertaining fashion.

One last one for the road, but not the least, another play, and that is Cyrano de Bergerac from Edmond Rostand. A true classic and a real favourite of mine too. From that one, there were a few specific parts that could be construed as poems in their own rights and that I learnt by heart too. So I give you la ballade du duel. This link misses the introductory bit a few verses before that I somehow still remember to this day : ‘Ballade du duel, qu’en l’hôtel Bourguignon, Monsieur de Bergerac eut avec un belître’. And also the truly mythical ‘tirade du nez‘. Unmissable and superb work, a classic of French literature.

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