The Voice of Things

by Francis Ponge

English, French (translation)

Genres: Poetry, France, School, French Literature, Classics, Read For School, Fiction

190 pages, Hardcover

First published June 15, 1942

About the author

Francis Jean Gaston Alfred Ponge was a French essayist and poet. Influenced by surrealism, he developed a form of prose poem, minutely examining everyday objects.

Reviews

[Laurie –Read Between The Skylines– · Rating 1 out of 5]

Une horreur. Un calvaire.
De la pure description qui est bien trop loin de la poésie pour moi.
Aucune beauté, aucun charme.

Un livre qui restera marqué dans ma mémoire pour sa médiocrité.

[Danilo Scardamaglio · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fenomenologia poetica al suo massimo splendore, oggettivismo puro. Il partito preso delle cose, originalissima raccolta di poesia in prosa, fonda la sua ricerca ontologica sul totale rigetto di ogni lirismo e soggettivismo, in una visione poetica in cui, in puro materialismo quasi lucreziano, gli oggetti diventano l'unico possibile referente poetico. Con uno sguardo al contempo passionale e scientifico, la realtà viene indagata nel tentativo di svelarne il significato più recondito e più autentico, indipendentemente dal significato comune a cui quel determinato oggetto è associato (la riflessione semantica, così come quella linguistica, è fondamentale). Questo non porta necessariamente a risultati di stampo concreto, ma può sfociare anche in bizze irrazionali e creative (che mi hanno ricordato fortemente le Illuminations rimbaldiane): eppure, la dimensione dell'oggetto non è indagata in una prospettiva unilaterale, ma anche nel rapporto che essa instaura con la dimensione umana, soprattutto da un punto di vista etico e morale. Per quanto anche stilisticamente Ponge sia rigoroso, razionale, l'oggetto è solo indagato con gli strumenti della scienza, ma le conclusioni, che sono conclusioni mentali, si basano sullo sguardo creativo della poesia.
Tuttavia, se dovessi scegliere un punto di forza assoluto della raccolta, questo sarebbe la sua potenza meditativa, pari solo a quella dei grandi religiosi: nei casi in cui è maggiormente possente lo sforzo meditativo (e di conseguenza lo sforzo ontologico), nei casi in cui Ponge travalica realmente l'essenza apparente dell'oggetto per giungere alla sua essenza "reale" (per quanto mai simbolica ma sempre fedelmente fenomenologica), come nella splendida Flora e Fauna, è poesia altissima.

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Butterfly

When the sugar prepared in the stem rises to the bottom of the flower, like a badly washed cup - a great event takes place on the ground where the butterflies suddenly take off.
Because each caterpillar had it's head blinded and blackened, and it's torso shrunk by the veritable explosion from which its symmetrical wings flamed -

From then on the erratic butterfly no longer alights except by chance of route, or just about.

A flying match, it's flame is not contagious. Furthermore, it arrives too late and can only acknowledge the flowers' blooming. Never mind: in the role of lamplighter, it checks the oil supply in each one, places on the top of the flower the atrophied cocoon it carries, and so avenges it's long, amorphous humiliation as a caterpillar at the stem's foot.

Miniscule airborne sailboat abused by the wind mistaking it for a twice-spawned petal, it gallivants around the garden.

pg. 46
Translated by Beth Archer

[Kassie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Il aurait dû appeler ça "Requiem pour une crevette", ouais ! Il devait sacrément mourir d'ennui pour se lancer dans un truc pareil...

[Uroš Đurković · Rating 4 out of 5]

To što Ponž radi doživljavam kao svoje. Kao sopstvenu poetsku teritoriju - scenu za čuda svakidašnjice. U lirskoj je optici Ponžovoj vaskrsavanje stvari, život predmeta, opredmećenje atmosfere, uz usklik: „Oh, obožavanje materije, ima li ičeg dostojnijeg duhu!” (16). Povratak sebi: povratak stvarima.
Bez obzira da li piše o blatu, muvama, cigareti, kozama, dimnjacima, železničkoj stanici, vodi ili prozoru, uspeva da dočara nešto što nije nadrealistička brbljivost ili metafore natrontane metafizikom, već dolazi do plastike doživljaja, do onoga što poezija jeste, a to je događaj-u-jeziku. Uprkos ponegde trontavoj retoričnosti, pa, sasvim verovatno i zakučastim preterivanjima, Ponžove iskre poetskih dragulja važne su čak i onima kojima je dalek. Oneobičeno sagledavanje neposrednog okruženja od književne drskosti postaće gotovo pa preovlađujući poetski tok, a svakako ključni začin, koji daje različite rezultate. Čitanje skoro svih najvažnijih srpskih pesnika druge polovine XX veka bilo bi osiromašeno bez susreta sa Ponžom: od Pope do Lalića. 

A o vezama sa filozofijom da ne govorim! Dovoljno je setiti se Bašlara (a gde je Bašlar, tu je, razume se i Bergson) ili uporedo čitati „Pohvalu ruci” i „Život oblika” Anrija Fosijona i Ponžovu „Prvu skicu čovekove ruke”.

Siguran sam da bi ovi stihovi zvučali još sugestivnije na francuskom. S tim u vezi, mislim da bi prevod Nikole Trajkovića trebalo da se upegla. O preciznosti ne mogu da prosuđujem, ali neki jezički izbori su, prosto, neuredni. 

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure. Gorgeous. Prose poems about ordinary things that make them deeply interesting.

Here's "The Cigarette"

First let's set the atmosphere, hazy yet dry, wispy, with the cigarette always placed right in the thick of it, once engaged in its continuous creation.

Then, the thing itself: a small torch, far more perfumed than illuminating, from which, in a number of small heaps set within a chosen rhythm, ashes work free and fall.

Finally, its sacrifice: the glowing tip, scaling off in silvery flakes, while a tight muff formed of most recent ash encircles it.
*

I also love "Ripe Blackberries," ... "a kind of fruit is formed from an agglomeration of spheres, each filled with a drop of ink."

And "Moss," and "Fern Rum," "The Candle," etc etc.

[Mina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Certains poèmes m'ont emportée mais la majorité m'ont laissée sur le bord du chemin. Je n'ai pas eu beaucoup de plaisir a lire ce recueil, j'en ai commis l'irréparable : remettre le livre inachevé dans ma bibliothèque...

[Anette Xia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn’t actually finish it (just the assigned section for my reading) but whatever. Maybe I will update this if I do ever get the full book.

First poetry book I’ve ever genuinely enjoyed reading. Some made me so happy to exist. Never knew poetry could do that.

Overall just a really beautiful and optimistic collection of prose poems.

[Lorette · Rating 1 out of 5]

J'ai RIEN compris.

[Alana · Rating 4 out of 5]

Living in a way that I am unable to bear the full grace of Book Ownership, I thumb the too warm (why is it so warm?) pixilated surface: the image of a pdf. This is illegal I know, but I can’t help myself. I’m working on myself, I will say, when faced with the heavy glances of the tribunal. Lite points too small to speak talk in scans that give a little bit more information than I believe Francis Ponge intended. Someone, there is always some one and sometimes it has been me too, someone, though I can never know whom, someone, although I already do not trust them at all, has underlined in thick black upon the now phosphorescent white words like ‘La Fontaine’ and ‘Aesop’ from the introduction, while finding nothing worthy of the same treatment in the poems themselves.

[Emil]

Le truc le plus compliqué que je n'ai jamais lu. Mais c'était bien. Mais c'était un calvaire. Mais j'ai détesté.
Parfois les mots n'avaient aucun sens pour moi, et bien que par tous les moyens, bien que mes ongles s'y cassaient, je ne pouvais tout bonnement rien y faire. Ça resterait -- restera -- flou. Et à l'inverse d'une poésie lyrique où la compréhension, les sentiments peuvent passer au-delà des mots, ici rien.

[Leonardo Rivas · Rating 3 out of 5]

No había leído nada de Ponge, me agradó su reflexividad y esa búsqueda de la poesía en lo cotidiano, atravesada por una palabra siempre sonando alrededor de otro cuerpo, vivo o inanimado.

Me esperaba algo más, pero es un libro estimulante. Veremos qué otra cosa leo de Ponge por allí.

[Enrico · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ma chi è veramente Ponge? E cosa aspira a trasmettere un titoletto così poco accattivante?
La risposta alla prima delle due domande ambirà forse ad essere banale: Ponge è un poeta: ma davvero?; la seconda infine, illuminante sotto molti aspetti si rivelerà non appena si inumidirà la punta del naso fra le pagine di questo libricino. In barba ai poeti metafisici, di cui, probabilmente, Ponge fu il barbiere, questa raccolta rivolge tutta la propria attenzione alle piccole cose, all'intrinseca mangia della materia disgregante: un'arancia, un mollusco, una porta d'ingresso; le more, una cassetta di legno, quant'altro ancora. E se potrà apparire innecessaria una tanta attenzione indirizzata verso la materia gretta e banale, si provi ad assaporare il linguaggio con cui essa viene descritta e non descritta: si sprigionerà da esso l'infinita dolcezza della materia di cui siamo avvolti e che non credevamo di conoscere.

[Marie-aimée · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un fabuleux petit recueil de poésie qui à l'art de mettre en valeur des objets ou des personnages délaissés. L'auteur reconnaît lui-même qu'il manque de confiance, véritable marque de modestie. Mes préférés sont "Les plaisirs de la porte" et "Escargots". A lire pour découvrir l'invisible dans ce que l'on croyait banal...

[Jonathan Rosenbaum · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading Ponge's Soap many years ago turned me into a lifelong fan. Lee Fahnestock's translation of his first book seems both fluid and graceful.

[Sass · Rating 2 out of 5]

gros point d’interrogation ?? pourquoi?? pourquoi cette œuvre est au programme de l’ens????

[Anya · Rating 1 out of 5]

je n'ai absolument RIEN compris. Les 30 dernières pages ont été un calvaire j'ai jamais autant détesté un livre et pourtant j'ai lu Hernani

[Noah]

Experimentalliteratur von poetischer Kraft. Schön zum durchblättern, nicht unbedingt zum lesen.

[Margot Dintrans · Rating 2 out of 5]

enfer et damnation

[Ben Loory · Rating 5 out of 5]

i was about halfway through this, and really liking it, when i got to "notes for a sea shell" and was hit by the sudden realization that THIS BOOK IS FUCKING AWESOME!

it's hard to describe what ponge is doing here. he's writing very short semi-scientific prose poem essays about natural objects. descriptions, mainly. rain. pebbles. candle. snail. they're a little bit like haiku, but much longer and for the most part with no formal structure. also, they're not impressionistic at all, but pretty much rock solid.

it is hard to explain, but i love them.

this is not representative, really, but it is my favorite:

Instead of those gigantic monuments which testify only to the grotesque disparity between his imagination and his person (or his disgraceful social and convivial habits), or again instead of those statues on his own scale or slightly larger (here I'm thinking of Michelangelo's David), which are simply representations of himself... instead of all that, for some unknown reason I wish that man carved out a sort of niche or shell to his own measure, an object very different from the mollusk form yet similarly proportioned (native African huts are quite satisfying in that respect); I wish that man applied himself through the ages to creating a shelter not much larger than his body, one involving all his imagination and reasoning; that he put his genius to work on appropriate scale rather than disproportion-- or at the very least that his genius recognized the contours of the body that sustains it.

And I do not even admire those who, like the Pharaohs, have monuments to a single man erected by a multitude. I would sooner he had put that multitude to work on something no larger, or not much larger, than his own body or-- which would have been even more commendable-- that he had shown himself superior to other men through the quality of his own work.

In that light I particularly admire certain restrained writers or composers: Bach, Rameau, Malherbe, Horace, Mallarmé-- above all the writers, because their monument is made from the true secretion common to the human mollusk, from the thing most closely proportioned and adapted to his body, yet bearing the least conceivable likeness to his form: I mean LANGUAGE.

[EMILIO S. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poesia come scoperta del mondo che ci circonda, mondo naturale, mondo altro , microcosmi: pioggia, molluschi, sole sembra che li si possano trovare le risposte a molte domande che ci assillano forse è in quei posti che è nascita l’anima del mondo, l’anima dell’uomo universale e moderno. Rimane il ritmo, la metafora, la descrizione minuziosa e scientifica dei fenomeni naturali e rimane un insegnamento tutto ciò che diamo per scontato e ovvio è prezioso come l’oro, poesia come pietra filosofale della modernità.

[P · Rating 5 out of 5]

Moss rum!

[Finnie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jvais pas expliquer mais le ressenti global peut tenir en un mot: horrible

[Svartalfar · Rating 1 out of 5]

FINALLY FREE !!! worst experience of my life !!!!!

[mwpm · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Voice of Things contains a number of texts by Francis Ponge, including the complete text of Taking the Side of Things ; selections from Methods , Pieces , Lyres , and The Prairie ; and a previously unpublished poem entitled "This Is Why I Have Lived"...

From Taking the Side of Things ...

On occasion night revives an unusual plant whose glow rearranging furnished rooms into masses of shadow.
Its leaf of gold stands impassive in the hollow of a little alabaster column on a very black pedicel.
Mothy butterflies assault it in place of the too high moon that mists the woods. But burned at once, or worn out by the struggle, they all tremble on the brink of a frenzy close to stupor.
Meanwhile, the candle, by the flickering of its rays on the book in the sudden release of its own smoke, encourages the reader - then leans over on its stand and drowns in its own aliment.

- The Candle, pg. 35

From Methods ...

It may well be that I am not very intelligent; in any case ideas are not my forte. I have always been disappointed by them. The most well-founded opinions, the most harmonious (best constructed) philosophic systems have always seemed to me utterly precarious, caused in me a certain queasiness, an uneasiness, an unpleasant feeling of instability. I haven't the slightest confidence in the statements I come out with during a discussion. Contradictory remarks made by others seem to me just as valid, or let us say for the sake of precision, neither more not less valid. I am easily convinced, easily dissuaded. And when I say convinced, I mean if not of some truth, then at least of the fragility of my own opinion. What is more, the validity of ideas most often seems to me in inverse proportion to the fervour with which they were expounded. The tone of conviction (and even sincerity) is assumed, it seems to me, as much to convince oneself as to convince one's interlocutor, and even more perhaps to replace conviction; to replace, in a sense, the truth missing from the statements made. This is something I feel very keenly.
[...]

- My Creative Method, pg. 81

From Pieces ...

The horizon, overscored with misty accent marks, seems to be printed in small letters, of darker or lighter ink depending on the light.
What lies closer gives me no more pleasure than a painting,
What lies still closer, no more than sculpture or architecture,
As to the reality of things right up to my knees, like food, a feeling of real indigestion.
Until finally, everything sinks into my body and flies out through my head, as though through a chimney open to the sky.

- Landscape, pg. 140

From Lyres ...

The moment has come, I think, to startle our generation by presenting it with a gripping truth - the most poignant one it can conceive of - which it had to formulate entirely by itself before we could do so. The smallest statuette by Giacometti is formal proof of this: for a generation - ours - to display its stamens so gloriously, it must have reached the end of its flowering.
Giacometti was born in 1901 in the mountain village of Stampa (Switzerland), which is to say in the rugged heart of Europe, but oriented more toward Italy. His mother, a rock (whom he resembles), married a field of flowers (a painter who, I have been told, was the finest Swiss exponent of the Impressionist school); she had three sons, like Switzerland herself: a rock and two pines.
It was thus in the most ordinary way that Alberto, born into an age of objets d'art, was determined to become an an artist; he was sent to the Academy. But he was endowed with the only quality which enables one to produce a few masterworks: passionately sensitive to the world, or perhaps to a certain thing in the world, he desire it with such fervour, such respect, such scruples, that he must have known the most pervasive torment because of it - and the absurdity of its expression. It is here that the profoundest questions arise. Why become a sculptor? He then decided to become himself.
[...]

- Reflections on the Statuettes, Figures, and Paintings of Alberto Giacometti, pg. 155

From The Prairie ...

When Nature, at our awaking, sometimes proposes to us
Precisely what we were intending,
Praise at once swells in our throats.
We think we are in paradise.

So it was with the prairie I wish to tell of,
And which provides my subject for today.

Since this has more to do with a way of being
Than with a platter set before our eyes,
The word is more fitting than paint
Which would not do at all.

Taking a tube of green and spreading it on the page
Does not make a prairie.
They are born in another way.
They surge up from the page.
And the page should furthermore be brown.

Let us then prepare the page on which today may be born
A verdant verity.

Sometimes then - we might also say in some places -
Sometimes, our nature -
I mean by that Nature on our planet
And what we are each day on awaking -
Sometimes, our nature has prepared us (for) a prairie.

But what is it that blocks our way?
In this little underbrush half-shade half-sun,
Who sets these spokes in our wheels?
Why, as soon as we emerge over the page,
In this single paragraph, so many scruples?

Why then, seen from here, this limited fragment of space,
Stretched between four rocks or four hawthorn hedges,
Barely larger than a handkerchief,
Moraine of the forests, downpour of adverse signs,
This prairie, gentle surface, halo of springs
and of the original storm sweet sequel
In unanimous anonymous call or reply to the rain,
Why does it suddenly seem more precious to us
Than the finest of Persian rugs?

Fragile but not frangible,
The soil at times reconquers the surface,
Marked by the little hooves of the foal that galloped there,
Trampled by the cattle that pushed slowly toward the watering place...
While a long procession of Sunday strollers, without
Soiling their white shoes, moves ahead
Following the little stream, swollen by drowning or perdition,
Why then, from the start, does it prohibit us?

Could we then already have reached the naos,
That sacred place for a repast of reasons?
Here we are, in any case, at the heart of pleonasms
And at the only logical levelthat befits us.
Here the prayer wheel is already turning,
Yet without the slightest idea of prostration,
For that would be contrary to the verticalities of the place.

Crasis of paratus, according to Latin etymologists,
Close [près] to rock and rill,
Ready [prêt] to be mown or grazed,
Prepared for us by nature,
Pré, paré, près, prêt.

The prairie [pré] lying there like the ideal past participle
Is equally rever(d)end as our prefix of prefixes,
Pre-fix within prefix, pre-sent within present.

No way out of our original onomatopoeias.
In that case, back into them.

No need, furthermore, to get out,
Their variations being adequate to account

For the marvelously tedious
Monotony and Variety of the world.
For its perpetuity, in short.

Yet must they be pronounced.
Spoken. And perhaps parabolized.
All of them, told.

- The Prairie, pg. 178-181

[Sanemsrgz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ponges günlük hayatta karşılaştığımız basit nesneleri seçip, betimlemeleriyle onlara daha önce hiç bakmadığımız bir bakış açısı sunmuş bizlere. Bazı şiirlerini sevdim, betimlemeleri başarılıydı, hepsi gözümde canlandı adeta. Bunun yanı sıra bazı şiirleri de anlamadığımı söyleyebilirim.
Kalemi beni özellikle çekmedi, fakat diğer şiirlerini okumak farklı bir deneyim olabilir.

Avec ce recueil de poèmes, Ponges nous livre une perspective totalement différente sur des objets du quotidien en les décrivant d’une manière subtil. Je dois dire que j’ai apprécié certains de ses poèmes mais pas la totalité, car je me suis retrouvée dans une totale incompréhension la plupart du temps.
Lire ces autres poèmes et de ne pas juger sa plume avec ceux-là pourrait être intéressant.

[Emilie :) · Rating 3 out of 5]

« Quel bonheur, quelle joie donc d'être un escargot. »

Ponge décrit la nature en la transfigurant ; à la manière des Anciens il mêle science et poésie, nous emmène à la découverte des pierres, galets, huîtres et grains de sable dans une analyse contemplative qui offre toute la grandeur physique et morale du monde au toutes petites choses dont il prend parti.
Certains poèmes sont assez hermétiques mais la langue est toujours impressionnante, une prose fluide qui cherche à briser les codes et offre de la beauté où on ne la cherchait pas, par la sophistication de ses mots et de sa pensée. C'est ce qui la fait poésie.

Je recommande au moins le début, allez feuilleter et vous amuser en même temps que vous étonner de la vie qui grouille dans ce recueil.
✨✨✨

[Léo Deully · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bon..
Je sais pas si je dois noter Le Parti Pris des Choses ou les Proêmes.
Si c'est Le Parti Pris des Choses, 4/5
Les Proêmes, j'ai TRÈS rapidement abandonné. 2/5

Le Parti Pris des Choses :
Franchement des beaux poèmes qui permettent de voir le monde différemment - ce qui selon moi EST l'objet de la poésie. "Le Pain", "Escargots", "L'eau", "Bords de Mer" et Végétation m'ont marqué. Mais ceux qui me touchent moins sont chiants à lire... de la description interminable ennuyante en poésie. 4/5 car des poèmes m'ont vraiment marqué, ça permet de rendre compte/sublimer la beauté des éléments du quotidien, et ce sont les poèmes auxquels j'ai mis un cœur que je relirai de temps à autre, au détriment des autres que je ne relirai sans doute pas.


Proêmes :
C'est juste chiant. Désolé mais y'a aucun talent là-dedans ou alors j'ai pas aimé car moi je voulais surtout lire Le Parti Pris des Choses mais sérieusement.. encore y'a des passages intéressants sur l'art mais je comprendrais jamais l'intérêt d'écrire un poème libre ; ça sonne mal, y'a aucune rime et aucun intérêt, l'idée de faire un mélange entre la prose et le poème (d'où le mot-valise du titre) est bonne sur le papier mais en application.. pour lire du poème en prose y'a rien de mieux que Baudelaire ou Rimbaud. Franchement, imiter le sonnet avec des alexandrins blancs, ok. Mais ne rien faire rimer ??? J'écris personnellement des poèmes et pour moi désolé mais c'est surcôté d'écrire SANS AUCUNE mesure de vers. C'est juste la forme contrainte du sonnet qui permet au mieux de renfermer l'objet poétique et de produire la beauté !! Je ne suis pas contre l'ouvrir comme Hugo le fait et être plus souple qu'au XVIIe siècle, mais quand même ! Le XXe siècle s'est vraiment mais tout, tout permis.

[Edragone · Rating 4 out of 5]

3,5

J'avais des préjugés avant de lire ce livre et finalement, ça n'est pas si mauvais. Le poète a pour but de décrire les objets (plus rarement les personnes) qui nous entourent. La manière de faire est à la fois moderne, et, si on y repense, particulièrement homérique. C'est à lire, ça n'est pas déplaisant et ça nous fait voir le monde autrement.

[Mélanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ponge a pris le parti d'apprécier les choses, de les observer dans les moindres détails afin d'en retrouver l'intérêt et la beauté. C'est ainsi qu'il écrivit des poèmes sur des objets a priori banals qui, au fil de la lecture, ne le sont plus tellement. Sublime ode à la vie.