The Tour of Madeline

A publisher I used to work with once told me that from time to time she seeks out poets to write children’s books. She believes that poets often write well for children because they know how to use words sparingly, and also have a grasp on rhyme and meter.

While Ludwig Bemelmans was not a “poet” in the traditional sense, he wrote the popular series of Madeline books using simple rhyme and meter, beginning his first book in the series with the famous lines: 

In an old house in Paris

that was covered with vines

lived twelve little girls in two straight lines.

The smallest one was Madeline.

(Bemelmans, 1)

Rhymes like those used in Bemelmans’ books, as well as in nursery rhymes, are among the first snippets of language that we learn. They are what teach us the importance of words, and what help us transition one day, into reading “adult” poetry. In an article written for Poetry Foundation, John Barr (the president of the organization), writes that “people who care about their poetry often experience genuine feelings of embarrassment, even revulsion when confronted with cowboy poetry, rap and hip-hop, and children’s poetry not written by ‘adult’ poets.”  In my opinion, poets too easily forget what it’s like to be a child, and what first attracted them to the written word.

            I think Bemelmans would have qualified himself as an artist and a storyteller before a poet. His stories are straightforward, and lack any sort of depth or hidden context, but his books are often used to teach children poetry and language at an early age. Since his first book about Madeline is written in rhyme and meter, and takes place in Paris, I thought it would be worth looking briefly at Madeline’s outings around the city.

            A few of the places featured in the illustrations of the book take the reader past the Jardin du Luxembourg, Ile de la Cite, the Eiffel Tower, and the Tuileries Jardin. One of the unique things about the picture book “Madeline”, is that Bemelmans uses art and rhyme to give children a tour of the city of Paris with Madeline, her 11 housemates, and their governess, Miss Clavel.  One of the first pages of the book reads “They left the house at half-past nine, in rain, or shine—the smallest one was Madeline.” The illustration shows a picture of the 12 girls wearing yellow outfits, each with a balloon tied to her wrist, which are for sale within the Garden. Another illustration shows Miss Clavel and the girls walking through the square in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral on the Ile de la Cite, each with a black umbrella.

            Paris is a city full of all sorts of writers and poets. As a frequent visitor to the city, I believe I would be remiss to not mention at least one poet who writes in simple, accessible language geared toward children. Books like these that teach children to enjoy the spoken word and rhyme, are what allow adults to one day be able to appreciate, and to write poetry themselves. 

 

Copyright © Ludwig Bemelmans 1939.

Oscar Wilde Moves to Paris

Last year, on a visit to Ireland, I stopped to admire a statue of Oscar Wilde that lounges on a rock in a park across the street from Merrion Square. I had read a few of Wilde’s works, and seen a college production of The Importance of Being Earnest several years ago. Outside of his writing, I didn’t know much about him. Upon arriving in France, I learned that Wilde spent his last days living in Paris.

            In 1885, when Wilde was 31 years old, he was convicted of gross indecency and sentenced to two years of hard labor. When he was released from prison in 1897, he traveled to mainland Europe. Wilde spent the end of his life living in the Hotel d’Alsace, now L'Hotel in Paris. Wilde was impoverished and still weak from his time spent in prison. Nonetheless, it was at this point in his life that both The Importance of Being Earnest and An Ideal Husband were published. One of Wilde’s most famous poems, “The Ballad of Reading Gaol”, was also written in France about the harshness of prison life. Wilde spent whatever money he earned in Paris on alcohol. Towards the end of his life, he is famously quoted as saying “Alas, I am dying beyond my means.”

            I took the opportunity to go to the hotel where Wilde spent his last days. Like the Beat Hotel, L’Hotel is now a lavish hotel, famous for the visitors it had in the past. Most rooms are rented out for anywhere between 255 and 740 Euros per night, and the hotel restaurant has earned a Michelin Star.

            While “The Ballad of Reading Gaol” is one of Wilde’s most famous poems, I have always enjoyed the elegiac poem, “Requiescat” which he wrote in his teens after the death of his sister, Isola. "Requiescat" or “May She Rest” is a lilting, sad poem with beautiful language and depth.

            The rhythm of this poem consists of an abab rhyme scheme and alternates between using six syllable and four syllable lines. The language that he uses is simple, yet elegant. The first few lines “Tread lightly, she is near / under the snow, / Speak gently, she can hear / The daisies grow” introduces the subject as someone who is still aware of the world around her. But death infuses the poem when he writes about her “bright golden hair / Tarnished with rust”. The line “She hardly knew / She was a woman, so / Sweetly she grew” gives Isola a personality as well as an age. It is the fourth stanza that begins “Coffin-board, heavy stone, / Lie on her breast” in which the mood shifts. The poem moves away from the hopeful tone of the beginning and despairs that his subject is gone. The light imagery from the beginning of the poem, describing snow, daisies, and light hair has been replaced by stone.

            Wilde follows this starker imagery with the lines “I vex my heart alone, / She is at rest”, which hints that he is conflicted between feeling alone and hoping that she is at peace. The end of the poem comes to terms with the fact that “she cannot hear” and also despairs at his own loss when he says “All my life’s buried here”.

            This poem stands out to me, as I often think of Oscar Wilde as a master of light-hearted, often humorous plays. “Requiescat” is infused with conflicting emotions of hope and despair, which seems reminiscent of Wilde’s life, especially the days that he spent in Paris.

30 Rue de Borgogne

A few weeks ago, I read about Le Club des Poètes, or The Poet's Club in Paris. Created by the French poet Jean-Pierre Rosnay and his wife Marcelle in 1961, they converted their small cellar into a place where writers, actors, and musicians came to recite and to interpret poetry. The website declares that Rosnay and his wife wished to "render poetry contagious and inevitable" because it is "the anti-pollutant of mental space, the counterweight and the antidote for an existence which tends to turn us into robots."

            Not knowing what to expect, we made a reservation with a few of our friends for last Friday night. We were told to arrive at 9:30. When we reached 30, Rue de Borgogne, we were confronted by an unmarked wooden door with a small, grated peephole. We quietly knocked, and were welcomed into the cellar by Rosnay’s son who sat us at a small heavy wood table. The room was covered in photographs from Rosnay’s life, as well as an old piano, an ancient telephone and a small kitchen, from where his son brought us some delicious quiches, salads, and desserts, all reasonably priced. 

 

The lights flickered when we’d finished eating, and silence fell as Rosnay’s wife stood in front of the room and recited a few poems by Rimbaud, Verlaine, and lastly, a poem by Rosnay. What I hadn’t realized when we’d made the reservation, is that Rosnay passed away only three months ago, in December of 2009. His son and wife have been carrying on his tradition since then, and as she recited her husband’s poem about trips to the sea with his family, a sadness settled in the room. While I couldn’t catch every word, it was interesting to hear the emotions, as well as poems written, and read, in French.

Rosnay was born in 1926 in Lyon. During his life, he had not only founded the renowned Poet’s Club, he’d also joined the Resistance in World War II, when he was only 15 years old. He was arrested for attempting to assassinate Klaus Barbie, who was the head of the Gestapo in Lyon. Rosnay later escaped from prison to join the French Army. After the war, he settled in Paris and established himself in the literary world there. He has edited anthologies and has written six volumes of poetry, including Diagonales,Comme un bâteau prend la mer, Le treizième apôtre, La foire aux ludions, Rafales, and Fragment et Relief. Among his circle of friends were other poets, including Louise Aragon and Pablo Neruda. 

Last year, Rosnay’s first English-language collection of poems,  When a Poet Sees a Chestnut Tree was published with translations by Jim Kates. While I was able to catch the meaning of some of his poems that were read in French last Friday night, I also enjoyed his poem “Les Pirogues” or “The Canoes” that can be read in both the original French format, as well as in English here.

I admire the simplicity of the words that Rosnay chooses for this poem, as well as some of his poems that were recited on Friday night. Perhaps at times, I appreciate this because I am able to understand more of the words in their original language, but I also like that he mixes romantic images, such as “he seems like an angel” with more down-to-earth images like “freshly barbered”, which is unexpected. He often uses conversational phrases like “I would swear it on my life” in his poems, which works effectively in contrast to his images of angels and “flaxen mornings”.

The poem seems to tackle perceptions (thinking about lifting one’s eyes to see a view, versus imagining that view) and memories. Rosnay mentions his mother, who died when he was only five, and his war-time experiences when he writes “the flaxen morning / my mother disappeared / I talk with soldiers / who died in battles / everyone’s forgotten”. His lack of punctuation allows the reader to experience his dream-like state, where one thought or memory blurs into the next, and one is never quite sure which is real, and which is imagined. The repetition of the lines “I lift up my eyes and see the sky in the trees / Then notice I haven’t lifted my eyes / and I have seen the sky / I would swear it on my life” book ends the poem nicely, but the line “I would swear it on my life” after images of speaking with soldiers adds a serious element to the narrative, and reflects on his history of being questioned and arrested when he was younger.

Rosnay's writing and personality lives on in the tiny cellar. Each performer who chose to recite a few poems ended on one written by Rosnay. There were about 20 people in attendance,  and the two men who got up to speak after Rosnay’s wife were both under the age of 30, which hints that a younger generation will carry on his tradition. Le Club des Poètes:  “a place for presentations…a place for meetings…a place open to the world”.

9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur

On Thursday, I made my way to 9 Rue Gît-le-Cœur. I had read that this was an important address for some of the poets of the Beat Generation. What stands there now is a small, 4.5 star hotel that has single rooms, complete with massage showers, starting at 190 euros (approximately $258) per night.

 

The original “Beat Hotel” was opened in 1933 by a Parisian couple named the Rachous. It lacked any sort of proper name, and has been referred to “the cheapest and most dirty hotel in Paris” by Jean-Jacques Lebel, an artist and writer who lived in Paris at the time. When Alan Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky first stayed there in 1957, it was a “class 13” hotel, which meant that it was required to meet only the lowest level of health and safety regulations. The rooms were dimly lit and hot water was available only three days out of the week. The curtains and bedspreads were washed once every year, and the bed linens were changed only once a month. As Madame Rachou had previously worked at an inn that hosted prominent artists, she encouraged artists and writers to stay at this accommodation. Sometimes, she even allowed these clients to pay for room and board with a piece of their artwork, or writing. 

After Ginsberg and Orlovsky began staying there, they were joined by other writers, including William Burroughs, Gregory Corso, Brion Gysin and others. It was at this hotel that Burroughs completed the manuscript of Naked Lunch and where he first experimented with different styles of writing, including the cutting up of larger manuscripts and rearranging them to create random, different texts.

It was here that Ginsberg began his poem Kaddish (link: http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/kaddish-part-i/), about his mother’s mental illness. It was also at the Beat Hotel that Gregory Corso wrote many of the poems for his book Gasoline, including his poem “Bomb”.

I had read works by Ginsberg and Burroughs before seeing the hotel, and I had heard of Corso’s “Bomb”, but I’d never read it, so after wandering for a while in the Latin Quarter, I found a coffee shop and sat down to read the poem near the place it had been written. Here is a link to a copy of the poem. I’m not sure it accurately represents all of the line breaks, but the reader can get the idea about its layout. 

“Bomb” was originally published by Lawrence Ferlinghetti at City Lights as part of a collection of poems called The Happy Birthday of Death. Considered the most noteworthy poem in the book, it was written on 2 pages that folded out of the book to show off the new form and the hefty subject matter. Written in the midst of the Cold War, it is itself a bomb—from the shape in which it appears, to the sentiment it conveys is menacing, honest, and explosive. He repeats the word “BOOM” several times, adding an onomatopoeia element towards the bottom, where the poem itself would have detonated to create the mushroom cloud above. 

Corso infuses the poem with references to characters and places both fictional and real, reminding his audience, with a great deal of irony, that no one is safe, and that no one can escape the ramifications. his poem becomes an ode to something very powerful right from teh start, and even references Whitman when he writes "I sing thee Bomb." The poem starts with the narrator admitting that "You Bomb / Toy of universe / Grandest of all snatched sky I cannot hate you." He goes on to list other things that he cannot make himself hate. He begins by stating things from nature, such as a thunderbold, but goes on to also say he cannot hate "the sad desperate gun of Verlaine." He seems to be hinting that while nature needs violent acts like a storm, humans also need weapons, and at times acts of violence. And despite the fact that "All man hates you they'd rather die by car-crash lightning drowning", he also says "you're no crueler than cancer. Towards the end of the poem, he even says "O Bomb I love you", as the work culminates in an explosion that is violently and sexually charged. The "BOOMs" directly follow the line "I want to kiss your clank eat your boom."

The bomb becomes revered in the poem--something almost holy at the end when it is "not enough to say a  bomb will fall / or even contend celestial fire goes out / I know that the earth will Madonna the Bomb."

For me, it is hard not to wonder at how different things are now. I am sitting in the same city, in a world that is still violent, just steps from where this poem was written. Yet, the Beat Hotel looks anything but grubby this afternoon, with its four stars and pristine lobby warmly lit up from within.

Barbizon

The town of Fontainebleau, where I live, is nestled in the middle of the Fontainebleau Forest, a 108 square mile area full of fir trees, rocks to climb, trails to hike, and the occasional wild boar. Compared to many of the surrounding towns that are scattered around the edge of the forest, Fontainebleau is a small city.

On Tuesday, a friend and I decided to head to the neighboring town of Barbizon to go for a hike and to explore the town.

Barbizon has only one main street with a few shops and hotels, but it is has a history steeped in the arts. Beginning in the mid-1800s, it became a popular vacation spot. But in addition to tourists, the town attracted quite a few painters, who would later be dubbed “The Barbizon School”. Among others, this group included Théodore Rousseau, Jean-François Millet, Narcisse-Virgile Diaz, and Charles- François Daubigny. In the second half of the century, the town also lured the younger Impressionist painters, like Monet and Renoir, who were interested in nature and the landscape of the area.

As Barbizon attracted artists, writers were drawn to the area as well. Well-known French poets, like Verlaine, Beaudelaire, and Guillaume Appolinaire all made the trek to the town and spent time writing there. Entering the town and the trails of the forest, it’s easy to see how so many writers and artists were captivated and inspired by the town. It’s hard to believe that Paris is less than an hour away by train.

After leaving Barbizon, I decided to read some of the poets who had written there. I especially enjoyed one of Verlaine’s poems that I came across, entitled “The Young Fools”. Below is the original French text, as well as an English translation (Poets, Copyright © 1997 - 2010 by Academy of American Poets.):

The Young Fools

By Paul Verlaine
Translated by Louis Simpson

High-heels were struggling with a full-length dress

So that, between the wind and the terrain,

At times a shining stocking would be seen,

And gone too soon. We liked that foolishness.

Also, at times a jealous insect's dart

Bothered out beauties. Suddenly a white

Nape flashed beneath the branches, and this sight

Was a delicate feast for a young fool's heart.

Evening fell, equivocal, dissembling,

The women who hung dreaming on our arms

Spoke in low voices, words that had such charms

That ever since our stunned soul has been trembling.

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Les Ingénus

Les hauts talons luttaient avec les longues jupes,

En sorte que, selon le terrain et le vent,

Parfois luisaient des bas de jambes, trop souvent

Interceptés--et nous aimions ce jeu de dupes.

Parfois aussi le dard d'un insecte jaloux

Inquiétait le col des belles sous les branches,

Et c'était des éclairs soudains de nuques blanches,

Et ce régal comblait nos jeunes yeux de fous.

Le soir tombait, un soir équivoque d'automne:

Les belles, se pendant rêveuses à nos bras,

Dirent alors des mots si spécieux, tout bas,

Que notre âme depuis ce temps tremble et s'étonne.

Source: www.Poets.org

Verlaine was one of the leaders of the symbolist movement in France, which also included poets such as Arthur Rimbaud (who Verlaine lived with for a time), Charles Baudelaire, and Stéphane Mallarmé. The aim of many of the poems that they wrote was to convey a mood or emotion rather than a straight-forward meaning. While this particular poem adheres to the form of a sonnet, many of the poems by the symbolist poets turned away from conventional methods, form, and values in their poems. Verlaine wrote this particular poem around the time he met his wife (whom he later divorced).He wrote this love poem around the time that he met her, and in it he expertly pairs imagery with rhyme.

 “The Young Fools”, is quite a sexy poem. It begins by acknowledging the physical attraction that young people, or “fools” have for one another, but also how the emotions are based on things as simple as a woman struggling with high-heels and a long dress over rugged terrain. The men in the poem enjoy watching the struggle because it often allowed them to catch a glimpse of the stocking beneath the dress. Verlaine groups himself in with the fools, as he says “We liked that foolishness”. 

The poem progresses from an image of a woman struggling with a long dress, to the more romantic and whimsical picture of women who hang “hung dreaming on our arms…That ever since our stunned soul has been trembling.” This movement adds a personal and dreamlike quality to the poem that initially seems quite grounded in the present. The start of the third stanza that places the reader in the evening suggests a sexual progression, as women are suddenly “hanging” and “dreaming” and the men end up with a “stunned soul” that “trembles”.

In an ongoing effort to improve my French, it was difficult not to notice some of the differences between the English and the French versions. The English version aims to keep the rhyme and meter that the French version has, but at times the translation is affected by this. For example, in the first line, “jupe” is a skirt, not a dress, which is a “robe”. And “Les Ingénus” literally translates into “The Innocents”.

Barbizon is a town that is full of beauty and nature. With museums commemorating the artists and authors who spent time there, it’s still easy to imagine a woman struggling in her heels and a long skirt as she walks along the cobblestone streets at the edge of the forest.

A Reading in Paris

Shakespeare and Company is an institution in Paris. A cozy English-speaking bookshop just south of the Marais, it's the kind of independent bookstore you hope can take the heat from all those online devices. Since its opening in 1951, it's become a haven for English-speaking writers and book lovers. It offers writing workshops, a quiet reading room, a typewriter for traveling authors, and readings most Monday nights.   

Last Monday, a few of us made the trek from Fontainebleau to Paris to hear a few poets / songwriters perform. I have always been interested in the fine line that separates the singers from the poets, and especially interested in those who can bridge the gap. Crammed into a corner, a book pressing against the back of my knee, I peered over the tops of books on a shelf to try to catch a glimpse of the performers, who included Kate Stables, Erica Buettner, and Colin Mahar.

I found Colin Mahar’s performance to be particularly appealing, especially as I am struggling to learn French. Mahar frequently works with translations; his method is unique in that he chooses a poem (or poems) that have been translated into French, and then he translates them back into English, and often sets them to music—a sort of poetic mash-up.

I wrote to Colin to find out more about his process of re-translating and writing, and he graciously emailed me back with details about the creative process for his poem (and song) "Morning to Night", complete with references and page numbers. Mahar created this poem by using five different poems from different points of Dickinson's life that he read in the bilingual edition of Emily Dickinson's Quatrains et autres poems brefs[1]. The first poem that Mahar uses is (Dickinson, 30):

A darting year—a pomp—a tear—

a waking on a morn

to find that what one waked for

inhales the different dawn.

The French translation of this reads:

Un an éclair—de la pompe—un larme—

L’éveil pour découvrir un matin

Que ce pour quoi l’on s’éveillait

Inhale l’aube différente.

(Lettre à Mary Haven)

From this, Mahar re-translates part of the letter back into English to read “one clear year, from the pump, there falls a tear”, and opens his song with this line. At first, I wondered how pomp, which is also clearly “pompe” in the French edition morphs into pump, but when I inserted the first line into google translate, which I usually find to be pretty accurate, the literal translation becomes: “A flash-year pump—a tear”.   

Another of his lines was taken from #56 in the book, which reads (Dicksinson, 88): 

 It rises—it passes-on our South

Inscribes a simple Noon

Cajoles a Moment with the Spires

And infinite is gone—

The French translation reads:

Il se lève—passe—sur notre Sud—

Inscrit un simple Midi—

Cajole un Instant les Clocers

Et disparaît infini—

 

This French quatrain is re-translated and condensed to become “It rises and flies to reach high noon.” While the translations are loose, the idea of playing with the words in such a way was new to me. His writing plays upon the flexibility within languages. A line that begins “Look back on Time with kindly Eyes” becomes “Jette sur le Temps en OEil indulgent” (Dickinson, 122) in French, and then morphs into “so look on Time with indulgent Eye”. The translation back into English is fairly accurate, as the French translation of the quatrain takes the liberty of changing Dickinson’s “Eyes” to the singular “eye”. For the most part, Mahar changes the lines just as much as the original translator into French. In both of the translations shown here, subtle word choices change ideas. But unlike the original translator, he's made the poems his own.

Mahar has also experimented with other poets whose works have been translated into French, including Sappho and Nabakov. His performance gave me new ideas about translation, my own work, and living in a new language. 

 

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[1] Dickinson, Emily. Quatrains et autres poems brefs (bilingual edition). Trans. Claire Malroux. Paris: Gallimard, 2000.