French poetry 101 – Andrée Chedid

[foudebassan]

And this, dear friends, should be the last of the poetry posts.


Andrée Chedid is born in Cairo in 1920, in a Lebano-Egyptian family. She studies in French, English and Arabic, and comes to live in France in 1946. Her serious poems are about the East and its influence in the West, but today’s poem is of the less serious kind.


Pavane de la virgule

« Quant à Moi ! », dit la Virgule,
J'articule et je module ;
Minuscule ; mais je régule
Les mots qui s'emportaient !

J'ai la forme d'une Péninsule ;
A mon signe la phrase bascule.
Avec grâce je granule
Le moindre petit opuscule.

Quant au Point !
Cette tête de mule
Qui se prétend mon cousin !

Voyez comme il se coagule,
On dirait une pustule,
Au mieux : un grain de sarrasin.



(Pavane of the comma

"As for me!" says the comma,
I articulate and I modulate
I am tiny; but I regulate
The words that were storming away!

I have the shape of a peninsula;
At my cue the sentence tips over.
With grace I granulate
The least of small opuscules.

As for the colon!
This jenny
Who pretends to be my cousin!

Look how it coagulates,
It looks like a pustule,
Or better: a buckwheat seed.)

The poem’s charm (apart for the fun it pokes at punctuation in general and punctuation fans in peculiar) is in the assonances and alliterations (= repeating of the same vowels and consonants without being rimes). It is not a traditional French form, the classics tend to work more with numbers of syllables and conventional rimes, but it does have something to it, does it not?

The “grain de sarrasin”, is, literally, a buckwheat seed, but a “Sarrasin” is a Saracen, and “to put a grain of something” means adding a little touch of something.

I cannot resist adding a bonus poem. I don’t feel up to translating it as it’s about accents (the funny signs we put up some vowels) and I don’t know how that could be rendered in English. But the French speakers should enjoy.


Éloge de l'accent

Aigu
Grave
Ou circonflexe
Avec zèle
J'annexe
Par kyrielles
Les voyelles !

A E I O U, mes belles !
Je vous suis providentiel !

Je vous coiffe à tire-d'aile
Je vous gèle
Je vous flagelle
Je vous grêle
Je vous ombrelle !

U O I E A, Agnelles!
Rendez-vous à mes appels !

Aigu
Grave
Ou circonflexe
Je le répète sans complexe :
C'est l'Accent
Qui fait le Texte !

(Note the allusion to Rimbaud’s Voyelles)



I’ll put up one last post to round it all up and add some technical precisions, but we’re essentially finished.

If you enjoyed this series, the best way to show your appreciation would be to do the same for your own national poetry… *nudges dacian_goddess and looks enquiringly to the rest of the audience…* or of course to do a French poetry 102! If you’re not on my f-list, please let me know, I’d love to read along.

Comments

[zafania.livejournal.com]

i dont think i'd be the person to do english poerty, since i mainly like comic peotry (aa milne is my favourite)

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

You could always do AA Milne 101?

[zafania.livejournal.com]

maybe after i've moved house, dealt with the emotional fallout, decorated my new palce, seen this art college project through and done rada! (bit overwhelmed right now, life is getting scary)

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

You have all my sympathy, especially on the moving bit.

[zafania.livejournal.com]

i have this horrible feeling that i'll ened up squatting in my own house becase i'll be so busy working to either go out and shop for stuff or be in to take deliveries!

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

My mother's getting finished with decorating their house right now.

They bought it, let me think, before Brother #3 was born, so that would be more than 15 years ago.

[zafania.livejournal.com]

i need to buy a bed tho, which i'll have to have delivered, and i have full days of work nearly everyday may/june, so how the hell do i do that - i may end up having to persuade my stepdad to wait in my house for me

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Don't you have a van? Can't you sneak a few hours and go to the shop yourself?

[zafania.livejournal.com]

its not a transit type van, its a small car based one, not big enough for a bed, although now i think of it my stepdad has one of those. trouble is hes about to have an op to remove a cyst from his groin so he wont be able to lift things and i dont want him trying, i'm sure i'll work something out (like how to get a double matress up my small boxed in staircase that you have to duck to get into) the house has really low cieling and tiny doors becasue its 200 years old, so i'll have no measure anything i buy just to check that it';ll go in

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Here in the Netherlands, staircases are always ridiculously narrow, they usually bring in furniture by the window, with a crane.

[zafania.livejournal.com]

they had to do that with my mums old flat, which was modern and had huge windows. i'm buying an elderly fishermans cottage, they were built with tiny windows to keep out the north sea weather, so the windows aren't really an option. at least i'll hvae no bother paining the cielings, since they're so low i can reach up and touch them - tall boyfriedns may be a problem tho!

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

They'll just have to kneel and crawl up to your bed!

[zafania.livejournal.com]

its the standard approach anyway, so that shouldn't be a problem

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

That comes as a huge surprise!

[zafania.livejournal.com]

it shouldn't really, scine you already know that i'm the creamy dreamy goddess of all perfection

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

And you have the boots, too.

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Oh, lovely, both of them!

I've barely studied any English literature, and am definitely not qualified to do English Poetry 101, alas. I must know someone who is, though... will look into it.

love

Catherine - who studied history instead of literature, and could perhaps do 'cool historical primary texts 101', if there were an audience for it...

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I only have one year of French lit, the rest comes from vague school memories and personal reading... *tempts*

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

I have the vague school memories, but that's about it.

Though it could be fun to do an introduction to Australian poetry, now I consider it. Again, though, I know people (on my friendslist) who know so much more about it than me, that I would be intimidated!

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Puppy eyes?

[17catherines.livejournal.com]

Awwww... so cute (but not as cute as the cats)

Significant further research is required. Maybe once the madness from my various jobs dies down...

[dacian-goddess.livejournal.com]

Well, I've received some horrid news this weekend, which has left me determined to bury myself in work to avoid thinking about it. I suspect my poetry posts will come up sooner than expected as a result...

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry about the bad news, but still looking forward to poetry posts.

[mme-de-bergerac.livejournal.com]

J'ai suivi de près, mais pas toujours commenté... Je serais tentée de voir ce que ca donnerait avec des poètes belges...

[foudebassan.livejournal.com]

Ce serait intéressant. J'étais assez tentée de mettre du Verhaeren, mais le temps pressait...