John Ashbery, ‘‘The New Spirit,’’ in Three Poems (New York: Viking, 1972), p. 3.
13.Zigzag poésie: Formes et mouvements: L’E√ervescence (Paris: Zigzag Poésie and Au-
trement, 2001), p. 174.
14.Poésure et peintrie: ‘‘D’un art, l’autre’’ (Paris: Musées nationaux, 1993) and Yves
Peyré’s Peinture et poésie: Le Dialogue par le livre, 1874–2000 (Paris: Gallimard, 2001).
See Mary Ann Caws, ed., Manifesto: A Century of Isms (Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press, 2002), with manifestos such as Spatial Eroticism.
John Ashbery, ‘‘En France, il y a des châteaux, des fées, des sorcières,’’ Zigzag poésie,
pp. 232–235.
William Carlos Williams, ‘‘To a Dog Injured in the Street,’’ in The William Carlos
Williams Reader, ed. M. L. Rosenthal (New York: New Directions, 1965), p. 64.
Jacques Roubaud, conversation with the author, New York, April 2002.
Simon Watson Taylor and Edward Lucie-Smith, eds., French Poetry Today (New
York: Schocken, 1971), p. 33.
Tristan Tzara, ‘‘Pélamide,’’ in Tristan Tzara: Œuvres complètes, ed. Henri Béhar, vol.
1: 1912–1924 (Paris: Flammarion, 1975), p. 102.
Tristan Tzara, ‘‘Moi touche-moi,’’ Tristan Tzara, p. 110.
Ibid.
For a fascinating account of the involvement of French poets and anthropolo-
gists—Leiris in particular—and the primitive pull, see James Cli√ord, ‘‘Negrophilia,’’ in
Hollier, French Literature, pp. 901–8. For art’s engagement with the primitive, see Jack
Flam, ed., with Miriam Deutch, Primitivism and Twentieth-Century Art: A Documentary
History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).
In the ‘‘First Manifesto of Surrealism,’’ Breton defines the term this way; ‘‘SUR-
RÉALISME: Automatisme psychique pur par lequel on se propose d’exprimer, soit ver-
balement, soit par écrit, soit de toute autre manière, le fonctionnement réel de la pensée.
Dictée de la pensée, en l’absence de tout contrôle exercé par la raison, en dehors de
toute préoccupation esthétique ou morale’’ (SURREALISM: Pure psychic automatism,
through which we propose to express, in speech, in writing, or any other fashion, the real
workings of thought. Dictation of thought, in the absence of any rational control, with no
esthetic or moral consideration). And in the same Manifesto: ‘‘Le seul mot de liberté est
tout ce qui m’exalte’’ (The word freedom, all by itself, is the only thing that I find exalting).
André Breton, Manifestes du surréalisme (Paris: Jean-Jacques Pauvert, 1962), pp. 40, 17.
25.Zigzag poésie, p. 24.
John Ashbery, ‘‘Parergon,’’ in The Double Dream of Spring (New York: Ecco, 1976),
p. 56.
Deguy mentions two works: Giorgio Agamben’s La Fin du poème (Stanford: Me-
ridian, 1999) and Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe’s Poetry as Experience (Stanford: Meridian,
1999).
Yves Bonnefoy, Sous l’horizon du langage (Paris: Mercure de France, 2002). See also
his Lieux et destins de l’image: Un cours de poétique au Collège de France, 1981–1993 (Paris:
Seuil, 1999).
John Ashbery, ‘‘For John Clare,’’ in The Double Dream of Spring (New York: Ecco,
1976), p. 35.
