Mute objects of expression / Francis Ponge ; translated from the French by Lee Fahnestock.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ponge, Francis.

Contributor:

Fahnestock, Lee.

Standardized Title:

Rage de l'expression. English

Language:

English

French

Subjects (All):

French literature--Translations into English.

French literature.

Physical Description:

165 pages ; 17 cm

Edition:

First Archipelago Books edition.

Place of Publication:

Brooklyn, N.Y. : Archipelago Books ; [Minneapolis, Minn.] : Distributed by Consortium Book Sales and Distribution, 2008.

Summary:

In "Mute Objects of Expression," Francis Ponge proclaims his goal: to accept the challenge that things--objects-offer to language. These objects and scenes are perceived with unique Pongean art and humor in this volume centering on the unoccupied southern Loire countryside, where his family lived from 1940 to 1943. Because of wartime shortages, much of the book was drafted in a small notebook that made up his sole supply of paper. The poems recall the voices of Marianne Moore and William Carlos Williams and evoke the violent perfume of the mimosa, the cries of carnations, and the flirtations of wasps. He is moved to explore a shadowy town square glimpsed from a bus window. But "to conquer this landscape of Provence? That would be too much!" claimed Ponge. "Mute Objects of Expression "is one of Ponge's most important and beloved volumes.

Contents:

Banks of the Loire

The wasp

Notes for a bird

The carnation

Mimosa

The pine woods notebook

En masse

The pleasure of the pine woods

Formation of a poetic abscess

None of this should be taken seriously

Appendix to the pine woods notebook

La Mounine, or, Notes struck in afterthought on a Provence sky.

ISBN:

9780976395034

0976395037

OCLC:

76801797