I try not to give five stars too often unless it really deserves it. This definitely does. It's phenomenal. Possibly the best volume of French poems I have read to date (in English translation).
I've often wondered why Desnos left the Surrealist group. Was it disagreements with Breton? Was it also because Desnos had his own vision of Surrealism? Or was it that Desnos was so good that he made Breton almost look like an amateur in comparison? I say "almost" because I also really enjoy Breton's writings. But Desnos is clearly the superior poet. Breton claimed that Desnos was narcissistic and maybe he was, but the guy sure knew how to write poetry.
This little book contains 22 gems from the French surrealist master. Don't worry if Surrealism is not your thing; there's still plenty to enjoy here. Desnos is possibly the most romantic of the Surrealists and some of these poems you could read to a loved one (if they appreciate poetry .... unfortunately my love does not) and they might appreciate some of the underlying sentiments.
Highly, highly recommended. Desnos is now in my top 5 poets of all time. He's not quite on Dante's level or even Hart Crane's, but he's up there. And he's definitely worth reading.
okay so I did not actually read 22 poems by Robert Desnos but 22 poems by Zayn Malik called "Zoems" that booklet or whatever you wanna call it was a part of his merch connected to "Icarus Falls" but as he did not publish it officially and as there is no way to add new books cuz GoodReads took that option away I will just use this book as a substitute cuz I want to remember that I read these
I really loved many of them but sadly was too tired to understand some haha will for sure come back to let them sink in more I love his lyricism and those were obviously very similar to his usual style of lyrics but I felt as if the form was a bit looser so they felt freer to some extent? idk most of the time I imagined him rapping the poems similarly as in "Calamity" or some of his unreleased songs really loved this and I'm happy that I found the pictures of them somewhere on the internet haha We share views on many things and him capturing so many thoughts and ideas in words that were honestly flowing like a river felt very meditative and soothing to me but I was also mildly overwhelmed by the amount of content these short poems somehow carried? as I said I will come back to these :))