Saint-Pol Roux (Pierre-Paul Roux) 1861–1940
provence, france
D
ubbed ‘‘the magnificent,’’ ‘‘the divine one,’’ and ‘‘the crucified one’’ by
his fellow Symbolist poets, Roux preceded the Surrealists. His mysti-
cism and his prolific and surprising images and metaphors becamelegendary. In 1886 he founded the journal La Pléiade. Seeking a life of solitude, at
the end of the century he moved to the peninsula of Roscanvel, in Brittany, where
his daughter, Divine, was born. There the so-called ‘‘Magus of Camaret’’ built a
manor on the hill of Camaret, where he meditated on his grand project, La
Répoétique. In 1925, the Surrealists held a banquet in his honor in Paris, which he
fled in panic. In 1940, under the Occupation, the Nazis looted his home, destroy-
ing most of his manuscripts and badly injuring Roux and his daughter. He died
four months later at his daughter’s bedside. Principal works: Les Reposoirs de la
procession (La Rose et les épines du chemin; De la colombe au corbeau par le paon;
Les Féeries intérieures), 1893; La Dame à la faulx, 1895; Anciennetés, 1903; Le
Tragique dans l’homme, 1983, 1984.
The Aviary
Whether eagles or wrens, scattered in sparks or perched like candelabra, each
species sketches on the firmament’s velvet its unique flight.
It looks as if each single one has been lit up to see like an eye.
Stars flapping a wing, planets planing along, they hover over an angled perch
without ever alighting.
No sooner has one star or planet vanished than in the manner of a round the
next jewelled rhyme arrives.
It’s almost mechanical, as if there were a birdseller about flicking switches.
Already the prettiest golden pheasant has gone, gone like a shepherd to guard her
dream flock.
Here and there a few paltry chickens are pecking away among the moon’s
debris of fallen pearls, pearls in such quantities that it eventually forms a white
path.
Never any jerkiness, each rhythm always in place.
A bit of a flicker, like a crazed match, and phosphorescence in the guise