Tempest of Stars: Selected Poems

by Jean Cocteau, Jeremy Reed (translator), David Austen (illustrator)

Film-maker, novelist, artist, playwright, entrepreneur, Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) regarded himself above all as a poet. No matter how diverse or prolific his creativity, he saw poetry as central to his vision of all the arts. And it was as a poet that he began his career, publishing Le Cap de Bonne-Esperance in 1919, and it was in this vocation that he published Le Requiem in 1962, shortly before his death. While Cocteau's prose has found sympathetic translators, no substantial collection of his poetry exists in English. Drawing on poems from all stages of Cocteau's life, Jeremy Reed has rectified this deficiency by translating a generous selection of some of Cocteau's most durable poems.

French/English parallel text.

Genres: Poetry, Queer

144 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau (5 July 1889 – 11 October 1963) was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager, playwright and filmmaker. Along with other Surrealists of his generation (Jean Anouilh and René Char for example) Cocteau grappled with the "algebra" of verbal codes old and new, mise en scène language and technologies of modernism to create a paradox: a classical avant-garde. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Colette, Édith Piaf, whom he cast in one of his one act plays entitled Le Bel Indifferent in 1940, and Raymond Radiguet.

His work was played out in the theatrical world of the Grands Theatres, the Boulevards and beyond during the Parisian epoque he both lived through and helped define and create. His versatile, unconventional approach and enormous output brought him international acclaim.

Reviews

[Joshie · Rating 2 out of 5]

The eroticism and profundity of Tempest of Stars in the midst of my lack of sleep has lost on me. Too brief if not mediocre these poems can be brutishly dreamy with a nice touch of (not even completely explicit albeit fondly phallic) nude illustrations. I can't help but see how some of these poems intersect interestingly with Cocteau The Filmmaker and his bourgeoisie background. His brilliant works like La Belle et la Bête and Orphée particularly come to mind in some of the lines I encountered. I think its opening poem, curiously titled "Amour" / "Love", is magnetic enough to plow through this short collection (included below) and I liked the sentiment of "The Poet at Thirty" which I can't find online and link here:

"The twist of a knife is well worth a rose.
Let me kill you slowly,
expertly; your lover
changes you into a dead woman,
metamorphoses you into a beast, an inkpot,
until you shout it.”
— Love

—— Other bewitching excerpts from this collection:

"How is it that time’s deceptive perspectives
take me back to the places where I wrote
Plain-Chant? I find the same sea on these shores
where I seemed to float

dreaming of love, sleep, illustrious things,
whatever youth imagines crazily,
and while this fire activates dormant cells
I drift with memory,"
— from POSTHUMOUS

"The waves, the leaves, the wind
and other faceless creatures
love you, and know you’re still alive,
conjurer of landscapes.
A greengage immolates itself,
its gash bleeds gold;
marble won’t weigh on this man
whose statue is a cloud."
— from IN MEMORY OF CLAUDE DEBUSSY

"A kite from your childhood
suddenly without thread you free yourself
sitting on it
With your ursine hand Garros
then
you point out something to me
and I bend over the edge of the abyss
and I see Paris below
and my city humbler
in its scale
deserted
vulnerable    alone    its jade coloured Seine
and the more I watch it diminish
the greater my sad love grows
For who goes away from what he loves
to destroy his sad love
and its figure
isolates himself divests himself
hides the rest"
—from INVITATION TO DEATH

[Eadweard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too short of a selection.
Nice art.



LOVE
The twist of a knife is well worth a rose.
Let me kill you slowly, expertly;
your lover changes you into a dead woman, metamorphoses you into a beast, an inkpot,
until you shout it
----



TESTAMENT
I was only awkwardness,
they thought I did it all by sleight.
My left side predominates,
they insist I use the right.
My life is made like this –
the thought of leaving it brings despair.
I see various festivities,
I never go anywhere.
Come death who brings stability,
restores us to our proper place.
I’m afraid to shock my angel,
my off-key art is written in my face
----




I drift with memory,
I go I don’t know where to find my death,
embalmer who gives back what beauty gave
and sees me sliding on the hurried slope
which feeds the grave
----



THE GOOD PUPIL AND THE APPRENTICE
Beauty observed in slow motion,
the acceleration of roses,
the angel become diminutive
are the least of things in the sky.
I am apprenticed to death.
Cyclists, your fluid calves
and smoothly running thighs
change the scene with each pedal-spin.
Summer finds me elevated.
Don’t wake God, he sleeps deeply:
I am his dream.
Waking him would be my death

[Edita · Rating 3 out of 5]

How is it that time’s deceptive perspectives
take me back to the places where I wrote
Plain-Chant? I find the same sea on these shores
where I seemed to float

dreaming of love, sleep, illustrious things,
whatever youth imagines crazily,
and while this fire activates dormant cells
I drift with memory,

[Mike · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars. A collection that spans the profound to the asinine. When Cocteau writes with clarity, his ideas can be startling:

Don’t wake God, he sleeps
Deeply: I am his dream.
Waking him would be my death.

When he delves into the abstract dissociations of Dada wordplay, his verse becomes almost unreadable, although I wonder if something is lost in the translation into English. Since I happen to be reading Diary of an Unknown at the moment, I read an essay where he discusses the similarity of the French words for “angel,” “angle,” and “wing” (the latter being a bit of a pun in French) that is mostly lost in English, although we still retain the angel/angle similarity in spelling. That comes into play in this collection when Cocteau writes of the “angle” of an aircraft’s fuselage, which figuratively makes the craft appear to be an angel in the sky, and is also quite literally the attached wing. I would have missed that without having read his essay, so I wonder how much else I’m missing amid the Apollinaire-style wordplay that was so popular in France in the ‘20s (dare I say a “fad”?) but that has not aged well, making for verse that in our century reads as obtuse (pardon the “angle” pun) and obscure.

The illustrations in the book, sadly, are not from Cocteau but were commissioned from another artist merely to be imitations in the style of Cocteau. I guess they couldn’t obtain the rights to his artwork? I’m not sure of the point of these doodles, other than as filler.

This is the only real collection of Cocteau’s verse translated into English, so I hold out hope that more is released in the future, even if much of it is unintelligible.

[reveurdart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great collection that includes both the original poems in French and in literal translated English. The collection also includes drawings by David Austen that are really good, actually, but it does puzzle me that they didn't choose Jean Cocteau's own drawings instead; his own art is excellent!
If you have an interest in jean Cocteau's poems and aren't a complete prude to artistic nudity in art, then I highly recommend this collection for English readers.

"you point out something to me

and I bend over the edge of the abyss
and I see Paris below

and my city humbler
in its scale
deserted
vulnerable    alone    its jade coloured Seine
and the more I watch it diminish
the greater my sad love grows"

("tu me signales quelque chose

et je me suis penché au bord du gouffre
et j’ai vu Paris sur la terre

et plus humble ma ville
à sa mesure
déserte d’hommes
faible    seule    sa  Seine en jade
et plus je la regardais décroître
et plus je sentais croître mon triste amour")

[Mattea Gernentz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Full Review: "Beauty observed in slow motion, / the acceleration of roses" (67).

Cocteau's words lilt and leap in Surrealist verse. I was reminded throughout of Villa Santo Sospir, which Cocteau decorated with gigantic bold murals in the 1950s. How fitting that stanza means "room" (in Italian); in his poems, Cocteau crafts rooms without floors, a tumbling into a (barely) controlled chaos. I did quite enjoy his ode to blue, "The Good Pupil and the Apprentice," and "Miracles" (shared below).

"Is it true, in your spa town, our Lady,
that you appear to the one-eyed, the lame?
Some Breton sailors saw you in the yards,
and told me of it, not using your name;
and claimed you had a swallow's costume
on a forget-me-not background on lace-paper:
your cry resembled that of a seagull's
when you disappeared, leaving their name written" (43).

Concise Review: Too many penises.

[Maryam · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Here I am in the middle of my life,
I am sitting astride my beautiful house;
on both sides the landscape repeats itself,
but fails to duplicate the same season.
Here, the red earth is antlered with vines
like a young roe-deer. The hung linen
breezily signals, welcomes the day.
There, appears winter, and the honour due me.
I’m prepared to believe you still love me,
Venus. But if I hadn’t written about you,
if my house wasn’t built of my poems,
I would feel the void and fall from the roof."
”

[Cellophane Renaissance · Rating 3 out of 5]

AMOUR

Un coup de couteau vaut bien une rose.
Laisse-moi te tuer lentement,
Expertement; votre amant
En morte vous métamorphose,
Vous change en bête, en encrier,
Jusqu’à vous l’entendre crier.


LOVE

The twist of a knife is well worth a rose.
Let me kill you slowly,
expertly; your lover
changes you into a dead woman,
metamorphoses you into a beast, an inkpot,
until you shout it.

[Joshua Sloan · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be talented in so many artistic media is rare. Cocteau's poetry lives up to the film and art I love - it a has the expressive, dreamlike atmosphere of memory but also illustrates and makes present the lived quality of things. Reading in the French I found the language much more elegant, meaningful, and engaging. I don't envy the translator's task and it's nice to have both languages for reference.

[Kris · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Don't wake God, he sleeps
deeply: I am his dream.
Waking him would be my death."

It's a rather odd collection, partly for its incredibly short length. There were a few parts I enjoyed, but some background would have enhanced the experience. I didn't find the introduction helpful. I feel like this is too tiny of a snippet to build an opinion.

[Sam · Rating 2 out of 5]

either cocteau was a horrible poet (unlikely) or this is a horrendous translation (likely)

also, thanks for all the penis drawings. really added a lot to the book. couldn't imagine the book without them

[rob · Rating 5 out of 5]

2nd read not sure why i never logged it
invitation to death is an all-timer, climbing thru skies like hart cranes hatteras

[Camis · Rating 1 out of 5]

so, actually, jean cocteau's poetry is pretty much senseless, numb and pathetic compared with his self and work from the cinematography. all the poems are really tasteless, but it goes worse when every time you cross a page there is a grey naked man in another senseless position, (not even talking abt the penis drawings?? pls). erotism made by men... could it be any worse?


i hope his literature turns out to be much better than this book, and if so i may even forget that it exist.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

just bought it to teach in "between poetry and art". i heard there are inappropriate erotic drawings in it by another artist, so i figure i'll just photocopy the poems. he gives a GOOD interview this man.