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”.
