Dreaming the Miracle: Three French Prose Poets: Max Jacob, Jean Follain, Francis Ponge
Baudelaire laid the foundations for prose poetry as a genre in the 19th century, but it wasn’t until the avant garde movement in the first half of the 20th century that the prose poem began a widespread emergence on the international scene. The three poets in this volume were major factors in this emergence. Max Jacob (1876–1944), a writer of surrealist cubist fables; Francis Ponge (1899–1988), a master of the language of things; and Jean Follain (1903–1971), who merged the everyday with the...
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Which of us...has not dreamed of the miracle of a poetic prose, musical, without rhyme...supple...rugged...?—BaudelaireKirkus ReviewsFrom prolific novelist Keeley (School for Pagan Lovers, 1993, etc.), a sincere if somewhat uneven story about the Nazi massacre of an entire Greek village near the end of WWII, and the effort decades later to pin the deed on a prominent Austrian statesman (Kurt Waldheim by any other name). Jackson Ripaldo, a frustrated journalist-turned-mystery-writer in Washington, is called to investigate the atrocity by his old Austrian friend, Count Wittekind. Ripaldo, familiar with the part of Greece where the massacre took place, accepts the challenge and goes right to the village, where he interviews a former commander of the local resistance. The man tells him what he knows, but makes it clear that his wife knows more, since she herself worked in the Nazis' headquarters as a cleaning woman. From her, Ripaldo receives a tale of passion and torment, as she reveals that she was in love with a German medical orderly whose death she believes triggered the massacre. The plot thickens when Ripaldo goes to Austria, where he interviews the orderly's boss, a former Wehrmacht officer who tried to use the woman as a go-between with the resistance when he wanted to desert. He indicates that the orderly survived the war and came home to Austria-and, indeed, Ripaldo finds the man's house, only to learn that he died five years earlier. He left a journal, however, an account that tells Ripaldo and the Count what happened just prior to the massacre and who was responsible for ordering it. Outraged, the American publicly confronts the subject of his investigation-with predictable results. The details of individual stories are gripping and real (Keeley has also written extensively about Greek culture and translatedcontemporary Greek poetry), but the deposition-style narrative and the dud of an American protagonist keep the story from realizing its dramatic potential.
Preface: The Prose Poetry of Max Jacob, Francis Ponge and Jean Follain13Max JacobIntroduction21War26Searching for the Traitor27The Truly Miraculous28The Tree-Chewers29The Bibliophile30La Rue Ravignan31The Beggar Woman of Naples32Success of Confession33Latude-Etude34The Judgment of Women35Poem in a Style Not Mine36A Christmas Story37Metempsychosis38A Touch of Modernism by Way of a Conclusion39Mystery of the Sky40Tale With No Moral41What Happens Via the Flute42Let's Bring Back the Old Themes43Errors of Mercy44Fake News! New Graves!45Poem46Literary Standards47A Bit of Art Criticism48Untitled49The Real Loss50Philosophical Return to What No Longer Exists51The Terrible Present52Hell Has Gradations53Fear54Warnings55The Bloody Nun56Ballad of the Night Visitor57In China59If Guillaume's Death Had Been Christian60Graveside Chat61The Soul and the Mind62Noble or Common63Mimi Pinson, Octogenarian64The Pilgrims at Emmaus65Customs 194466Pre-War67The Castle of Painbis68Several Judgments by Our Set ...69Town Crier70My Soul71Reconstruction72Francis PongeIntroduction75The End of Autumn82Poor Fishermen83Rum of the Ferns83Blackberries84The Crate85The Candle86The Cigarette86The Orange87The Oyster88The Pleasures of the Door89Fire89The Cycle of the Seasons90The Mollusk91Snails92The Butterfly96Moss97Water98Notes Toward a Shell100The Pebble104The Shrimp in Every (and All in a) State111The Shrimp Exaggerated117Abode of the Gray Shrimp119Shrimp One123Shrimp Two124The Pigeon126The Frog127The Horse128Manure131The Goat132The Earth136Notes on the Making of The Prairie138The Prairie143O This is Why I Have Lived148Jean FollainIntroduction151There was a door ...157The photograph of my grandfather ...157The snuffbox belonging to ...158A very distant image ...158I was five years old ...159Replete with parish affairs ...159The woodbin in my maternal grandmother's ...160There were sparrows and fruits ...160The shed where the casks ...161My maternal grandmother ...162The mighty edifices of nightfall ...163There were also days ...163Opening his hands ...165A boy is troubled ...166The landscapes they walk through ...167The cress-peddler ...168As in the city theater curtains rise ...169There's no more war ...170On Easter Sunday ...171To know how a leaf feels ...172One day I suddenly notice ...173A chant goes up ...174The fineness of things ...175She stops short at something ...176Close attention to things ...177Should the schoolboy ...178There are moments ...179The women washing dishes ...180Some territories are neither ...181Hamlets still keep the smell ...182This plant, so exceptional ...183You can get the impression ...184The county groundskeeper ...185Store windows start to light up ...186A crossroads ...187Flies die on the sticky ribbon ...188There are those who would like ...189During the summer of 1910 ...190For years on end ...191In 1880, hair counts a lot ...192One evening at the turn of the century ...193In houses one approaches carefully ...194At dinner, a civil servant ...195The sound of wind ...196School children holding hands ...197If a child skins a knee ...198"We're here," the husband says ...199A child's frail voice ...200The middle-aged teacher ...201People try to fight time ...202Insomniacs toss and turn ...203The woman says: "It looks like rain." ...204The house sits well back ...205A middle-aged man's wife tells him ...206
\ Kirkus ReviewsFrom prolific novelist Keeley (School for Pagan Lovers, 1993, etc.), a sincere if somewhat uneven story about the Nazi massacre of an entire Greek village near the end of WWII, and the effort decades later to pin the deed on a prominent Austrian statesman (Kurt Waldheim by any other name). Jackson Ripaldo, a frustrated journalist-turned-mystery-writer in Washington, is called to investigate the atrocity by his old Austrian friend, Count Wittekind. Ripaldo, familiar with the part of Greece where the massacre took place, accepts the challenge and goes right to the village, where he interviews a former commander of the local resistance. The man tells him what he knows, but makes it clear that his wife knows more, since she herself worked in the Nazis' headquarters as a cleaning woman. From her, Ripaldo receives a tale of passion and torment, as she reveals that she was in love with a German medical orderly whose death she believes triggered the massacre. The plot thickens when Ripaldo goes to Austria, where he interviews the orderly's boss, a former Wehrmacht officer who tried to use the woman as a go-between with the resistance when he wanted to desert. He indicates that the orderly survived the war and came home to Austria-and, indeed, Ripaldo finds the man's house, only to learn that he died five years earlier. He left a journal, however, an account that tells Ripaldo and the Count what happened just prior to the massacre and who was responsible for ordering it. Outraged, the American publicly confronts the subject of his investigation-with predictable results. The details of individual stories are gripping and real (Keeley has also written extensively about Greek culture and translatedcontemporary Greek poetry), but the deposition-style narrative and the dud of an American protagonist keep the story from realizing its dramatic potential.\ \
