Poetry is made in a bed like love
Its rumpled sheets are the dawn of things
Poetry is made in woods
It has the space it needs
Not this one but the other whose form is lent it by
The eye of the Kite
The dew on a horsetail
The memory of a bottle frosted over on a silver tray
A tall rod of tourmaline on the sea
And the road of the mental adventure
That climbs abruptly
One stop and bushes cover it instantly
That isn’t to be shouted on the rooftops
It’s improper to leave the door open
Or to summon witnesses
The shoals of fish the hedges of titmice
The rails at the entrance of a great station
The reflection of both river banks
The crevices of bread
The bubbles of the stream
The days of the calendar
The St Johns wort
The acts of love and poetry
Are incompatible
With reading the newspaper aloud
The meaning of a sunbeam
The blue light between the hatchet blows
The bat’s thread shaped like a heart or a hoopnet
The beaver’s tails beating in time
The diligence of the flash
The casting of candy from the old stairs
The avalanche
The room of marvels
No dear sirs it isn’t the eighth Chamber
Nor the vapours of the roomful some Sunday evening
The figures danced transparent above the pools
The outline on the wall of a woman’s body at
daggerthrow
The bright spirals of smoke
The curls of your hair
The curve of the Philippine sponge
The swaying of the coral snake
The ivy entrance in the ruins
It has all the time ahead
The embrace of poetry like that of the flesh
As long as it lasts
Shuts out any glimpse of the misery of the world
Andre Breton (1896-1966 ) was a poet and critic and a leader of the surrealist movement. Born to a family of modest standing in Tinchebray, Orne Department Normandy, he went on to study medicine and psychiatry, working in a psychiatric ward through WW1. During this period he met a devotee of Alfred Jarry, Jacques Vache, whose attitude towards the social norms and disdain for the traditional artistic aesthetic was a major influence on Breton. Later as a writer in Paris, Breton pioneered the anti-rationalist movements in art and literature known as Dadaism and surrealism, which was a reaction to the disillusionment with tradition, that marked the post world war 1 era. Being a keen student of the works of Sigmund Freud, plus his experimentation with automatic writing led to him formulating his Surrealist theory, expressing his views in Literature, the leading surrealist periodical, which he co-founded and edited for many years. His best creative work is considered the novel Nadja (1928), based partly on his own experiences. His poetry, in Selected Poems (1948; trans. 1969), reflects the influence of the poets Paul Valery.
pomes ALL SIZES
If you have a Poem/ Poet, you admire please introduce them to me.
I read this poem several times over before coming down to comment.
ReplyDeleteUsually, I read the first few lines of a poem and stop.
But, I think you're teaching me to appreciate them. To understand them. Certainly, to read them.
And you say the complexities of the female heart are as deep as he Mariana Trench. Surely this is true, but no more complex than a poet's, and a lot harder to carry around.
(Have you ever considered forming a poetry challenge or read-along? I'd love to partake.)
Hi Bellezza, thanks for your comment as to something concerning I've been umming & arhhing with the idea & am going to try something to judge the interest levels soon.
ReplyDeleteBut your interest is duly noted.
Thanks.
I'm going to second Bellezza's comment about a poetry challenge. As you have experienced first-hand, I am not great at following challenges, formal or not, but feel that I'm lacking in the poetry department and would love to round that out a bit. Which I could do on my own but what's the point of the internet if not community.
ReplyDelete