The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

Guillaume Apollinaire

(Guillaume Apollinaris de Kostrowitzky) 1880–1918

rome, italy

A

pollinaire came to the forefront of the modern age through both his

poetry and his spirit of invention, serving as a sounding board for

many new ideas of his time. He continues to feel among the freshest of

contemporary poets. He is credited with publicizing Cubism as a movement,

coining the term surrealism, which he applied to his play Les Mamelles de Tirésias,

and inventing the ‘‘conversation poem’’—for example, a collage of remarks over-

heard in a bar or a bus. Born in Rome to a Polish mother and Italian father,

Apollinaire sometimes claimed he was the Pope’s son. He was extremely gregar-

ious and, after moving to Paris at the age of twenty, had friends among painters

and writers such as Picasso, André Derain, Marie Laurencin, and Alfred Jarry.

Principal works: Alcools: Poèmes, 1898–1913, 1913; Calligrammes: Poèmes de la paix

et de la guerre, 1913–1916, 1918; Il y a, 1925; L’Esprit nouveau et les poètes, 1946;

Ombre de mon amour (poèmes à Lou), 1947.