Jean Follain Books

I'm not always fond of Merwin's verse translations, but he's done a beautiful job on these. Every poem is solidly lineated. They sound as though they'd been written originally in English. The diction always feels right--neither too high nor too low.

If you've never read Follain's verse poems, this is the way to start. His poems manage to be both highly economic and evocative. They are rich and earthly, intellectually precise and "metaphysical" in the sense used by Eliot.

Fortunate we are that W.S. Merwin commits as much time to translating other poets from other countries and times as he commits to writing his own magnificent works. His gifts as a poet make him far more than a translator: Merwin finds the seed of intention of the poet's works he embraces and manages to lift the thoughts intact into the English language.

This very fine compilation of the poetry of Jean Follain has been gleaned from nine books of poems, curating the best of Follain's poems into a single heady volume. The poems are brief, address history and the effects of time passing with an economy of words that distill portions of moments into indelibly whispered thoughts.

OCTOBER THOUGHTS

'How one loves
this great wine
that one drinks all alone
when the evening illumines its coppered hills
not a hunter now
stalks the lowland game
the sisters of our friends
seem more beautiful
at the same time there is a threat of war
an insect pauses
then goes on.'

Read it several times and the atmosphere of World War II in the tremulous French countryside is palpable. And this is only one of many. Merwin allows us the pleasure of reading the poems in both French and English, a fine concept that Copper Canyon Press continues to pursue. A superb collaboration of poetic sharing. Grady Harp, December 06

The prose poem is something of a French specialty. Edgar Allan Poe may have coined the term, but it was Poe's French translator Charles Baudelaire who first "dreamed of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical without rhyme, supple and muscular," and became the first of many fine French poets to excel in this oxymoronic genre. "Dreaming the Miracle" brings together a sampling of the work of three masterful French prose poets of the 20th Century: the surrealist Max "the Nut" Jacob (1876-1944), the first great poet to apply dream logic to poetic composition; Francis Ponge (1899-1988), the "would-be encyclopedist" of the poetry of the ordinary object; and (one of the great finds of the last century) Jean Follain (1903-1971), an obscure judge who wrote exquisite vignettes that collectively comprise an intimate albeit anonymous autobiography of the last century.

The Jacob and Ponge translations seem a little uneven at times, but the poetry shines through nonetheless. The translations of Follain's prose poems, beautifully rendered by Mary Feeney and the late, great poet William Mathews, are an unadulterated delight. Since the publisher neglected to put any sample pages up on the Amazon website, let me rectify the omission by quoting a representative prose poem from each poet:


Max Jacob: The Beggar Woman of Naples

When I lived in Naples, there was a beggar woman at my palace gate I'd toss a coin to before getting into my carriage. One day, surprised that she never thanked me, I looked at her. As I did, I saw that what I'd mistaken for a beggar woman was a green wooden crate containing some red earth and a few half-rotten bananas.


Francis Ponge: The Pleasures of the Door

Kings do not touch doors.
They know nothing of this pleasure: pushing before one gently or brusquely one of those large familiar panels, then turning back to replace it--holding a door in one's arms.
The pleasure of grabbing the midriff of one of these tall obstacles to a room by its porcelain node; that short clinch during which movement stops, the eye widens, and the whole body adjusts to its new surrounding.
With a friendly hand one still holds on to it, before closing it decisively and shutting oneself in--which the click of the tight but well-oiled spring pleasantly confirms.


Jean Follain: Untitled

Store windows start to light up: displays that banish thoughts of war or hunger, huge dolls with lifelike lashes, eyelids that close. A storefront with shining jewels catches your eye. A white wall takes on a greengage tint. A gutter along the sidewalk seems to be running with a red liqueur instead of dirty water. Absinthe green smoke floats up from muted roofs. There's a passerby who's never written a word except his signature, using a beat-up wooden holder. He senses this bursting beauty. And the man with a terrible temper, seeing his hand turned orange by the sunset, falls silent before his household who fear him, maybe even forgive him his fits.