(P/B) APOLLINAIRE: SELECTED POEMS

Παρουσίαση

Apollinaire's poetry reflects the heady years of artistic and intellectual ferment before the First World War. The most dynamic modernist French poet and the champion of the Cubist painters, he is remembered as much for his more traditional lyric poems as for the typographical experiments of his calligrammes. Subtle and complex, yet often direct, his poetry is still fresh and memorable. (From the publisher)

MAY
In May lovely May on a boat on the Rhine
There were ladies looking from high on the mountain
You are so very pretty but the boat glides past
But who has made the willows weep on the river bank
Now the flowering orchards stood frozen astern
The petals fallen from the cherry trees in May
Are the fingernails of her whom I loved so much
And the faded petals are like her eyelids
Along the road on the river bank slowly
A bear a monkey and a dog led by gipsies
Followed a caravan pulled by a donkey
While amongst the vineyards of the Rhine valley
A regimental tune on a fife passed away
May lovely May has garlanded the ruins
With ivy Virginia creeper and wild rose
The wind of the Rhine stirs the willows on the bank
And the whispering rushes and the naked vine flowers

[Translated by Oliver Bernard]

Περιεχόμενα

INTRODUCTION
Orpheus
Zone
The Pont Mirabeau
Tortoise
Horse
The Song of the Ill-Loved
One night of London mist and flame
Song for Laetare a Year Past
Many of those gods are dead
Reply of the Zapur-Og Cossacks
O milky way
The Seven Swords
O milky way
Autumn Crocuses
Annie
Marizibill
The Traveller
The Door
Tibetan Goat
Hare
The Circus People
The Landor Road Emigrant
Rosemonde
May
Synagogue
The Betrothal
The Spring invites unfaithful lovers to wander
My friends have at last admitted they despise me
I no longer even have pity for myself
I have summoned up the courage
Forgive me for my ignorance
I observe the Sunday rest
In the end lies no longer frighten me
At the corner of a street
O flaming Templars
1909
In the Sante
Rabbit
Dromedary
Hunting Horns
The Windows
Rue Christine Monday
Heart, Crown and Mirror
It's Raining
The Little Car
Gala
Exercise
Postcard
Mouse
Carp
The Pretty Red-Head
Cornflower
The Skirt
Prayer
Hotel
Calligram for Madeleine (15 May 1915)
The Ninth Secret Poem
Inscription for the Tomb of the Painter Henri Rousseau the Douanier
Table
Here is the coffin
Vive la France!
Harden old heart
Letter to Andre Billy. 9 April 1915
Inscription on Apollinaire's Tombstone
NOTES