14 June 2009

La Poésie C'est...

For the francophones out there, here are some notes on Poetry that I found in a French text book lying on the staff room table in France during a French exchange. It presents definitions of poetry from the mouths of famous French poets themselves:

La Poésie C’est…

…un pur don céleste (Du Bartas)
…faire une perle d’une larme (Musset)
…donner à voir (Eluard)
…de la musique avant toute chose (Verlaine)
…une grappe d’images (Bachelard)
…l’art d’évoquer les minutes heureuses (Baudelaire)
…une imitation et une peinture (Fénelon)
…comme des lunettes. C’est pour mieux voir… (Siméon)
…tout ce qu’il y a d’intime dans tout (Hugo)
…les mots qui disent le monde et qui disent l’homme (Eluard)


The fact that the definitions are written in French makes them seem to me like poetry themselves. "...to make a pearl from a tear (Musset)" reminds me of the Psalm writers of the bible and how God can change our dark clouds to sunshine if we just stick with him through any trial (see Blog entry 17 January 2009)

No comments: