The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

FRANCIS PONGE

it thinks itself a cafe counter
where the circles left by the glasses trace a chain
I would only say to you
I love you like the grain of wheat loves the sun rising above its blackbird
head
—rachel stella

Fountain

He is Rosa without Rosa
says the frost glad to chill the white wine
about to crash in the churches some Easter day
He is Rosa without Rosa
and when the mad bull of the great cataract invades me
under his raven wings chased from a thousand towers in ruin
what’s the weather like
It’s Rosa weather with a real Rosa sun
and I’m about to drink Rosa while eating Rosa
until I drowse o√ in a Rosa sleep
dressed in Rosa dreams
and Rosa dawn will wake me like a Rosa mushroom
with the image of Rosa surrounded by a Rosa halo
—mary ann caws

Francis Ponge 1899–1988

montpellier, france

P

onge, a prose poet, journalist, and editor, was interested in producing a

‘‘cosmogony,’’ not in writing poetry. His work described natural objects

and attempted to explain the existence of both things and humans in

the cosmos. In an article written in the 1940s, Sartre identified him as an existen-

tialist poet, doing much to publicize his work. Ponge’s combinations of genres

and ideas have endured, inimitably: his proèmes join prose and poetry, and his