Stéphane Mallarmé

Collected Poems and Other Verse

jess

probably the most, experimental poetry i have ever read. so many interpretations, so enigmatic in its prose, symbolistically aligned, and pretty much lost in its translation. peaked my interest in relearning french seriously again. many are such with a painstaking recreation of Mallarme's textual specifications, and oulipo-like poems (in A Dice Throw At Any Time Never Will Abolish Chance) that with each line in every verso plus recto, capable of its numerous, mystifying subjective interpretation, and thus Mallarme prefer it 'to not be read, or to be glanced at and then actually forgotten'. 

to quote one of many favorites, here are Sea Breeze, that Mallarme roughly summarized as (though his work will always end in fatal distortion, if, summarized), 'the inexplicable desire that sometimes grips us—to leave those who are dear to us, and depart!'

"The flesh is sad— and I've read every book.
O to escape—to get away! Birds look 
as though they're drunk for unknown spray and skies.
No ancient gardens mirrored in the eyes,
nothing can hold this heart steeped in the sea—
not my lamp's desolate luminosity
nor the blank paper guarded by its white 
nor the young wife feeding her child, O night!
Away! You steamer with your swaying helm,
raise anchor for some more exotic realm!
Ennui, crushed down by cruel hopes, still relies
on handkerchiefs' definitive goodbyes!
Is this the kind of squall-inviting mast
that storm-winds buckle above shipwrecks cast
away—no mast, no islets flourishing?...
Still, my soul, listen to the sailors sing!"

I long to reread this book again, with french that is adequate enough to devour another perspective that perhaps, closer one to Mallarme's original thought.

Collected Poems and Other Verse

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