French Modernists - Late 19th and Early 20th Century Poetry

This morning, drinking coffee and watching through the window as the wind raged while the sun felt almost spring-like despite it still being the tail end of January, I thought I would look for poetry readings on YouTube as a wonderful backdrop. Unfortunately one must note that poetry readings in Latvian are exceedingly scarce. I had to dig out the notebook from my student days, in which a few compositions by French modernists had been diligently copied out.

Arthur Rimbaud (Arthur Rimbaud, 1854–1891) - one of the representatives of early Symbolism, who sought not only to express himself in poetry but to become clairvoyant. Film lovers will certainly remember the film "Total Eclipse" (1995) about this poet's life and his complicated relationship with Paul Verlaine. The character portrayed by Leonardo DiCaprio - a young man with a sharp character, who ran away from home in his teens, emphatically rejects the norms imposed by society, past experience and any kind of commitments.

Svens Kuzmins and Gaiķu Māris read translations of French poetry - Arthur Rimbaud

Published in Latvian are a collection of Rimbaud translated by Gits Grīnbergs, "A Season in Hell / Illuminations" (Atēna, 2005), and a poetry selection translated by Dagnija Dreika, "Circus Horses Gallop" (Daugava, 2005). A few more poems are included in the French poetry anthology "I Continue You" (Liesma, 1970).

Paul Éluard (Paul Éluard, 1895–1952) - one of the Surrealists of that era. In my view, the most flowing and pleasurable poetry among the modernists. Éluard's name is also known in connection with Dalí, whom I have mentioned more than once. Paul Éluard's wife Elena left him and became Dalí's Gala.

Portrait of Paul Éluard painted by Dalí

***
In you I love all the women I have never known
In you I love all the ages I have not lived
In you I love the sea's breath and the warm scent of bread
And melting snow and the first flowers
And the innocent animals that humans do not frighten
In you I love love
In you I love all the women I do not love

Were you not there where could I see myself who would reflect me
Without you an empty plain stretches before my eyes
Between the past and today
There has been all this wretchedness and death I have survived
But I could not break through my mirror wall
And had to learn life word by word
As one forgets

In you I love your wisdom which is not my own
And your health
In spite of all that is but illusion I love you
For the immortal heart to which I give free rein
You think you are doubt but you are reason
You are the brilliant sun that rises to my head
When I feel sure of myself

***
I want nothing but to love you
A storm can fill a valley
A fish fills a river

I created you to the measure of my solitude
A whole world in which to hide
Days and nights to understand each other

So that in your eyes I see only
What I think of you
And the world in your likeness

And days and nights whose exchange is ordered by your fingers

***
Nothing is clearer than love
That sleeps in its illusions
Stands in its truth

Fragments from the poetry anthology "I Continue You" (1970), whose title was also taken from an Éluard poem - ".. you dreamed of being free I continue you ..".

Guillaume Apollinaire (Guillaume Apollinaire, 1880–1918) - also a Surrealist poet. Also known for being one of the first to write calligrams (a poem and a drawing simultaneously).

***
Ropes twisted from cries
Bell sounds sweep across Europe
Ages strung up
Nations bound to tracks
We are only two or three
Free from all bonds
Let us offer each other our hand