The River Underground: Selected Poems & Prose

by Jean Tardieu

Tardieu's poetry has an almost childlike simplicity, and in France his work is studied both in universities and schools. He addresses problems of experience and language central to modern literature, bringing lively wit and humor to bear upon an anguished interrogation of the world. Tardieu was born in 1903, and this selection spans seventy years of his writing. In his early years the difficulties of writing lyric poetry in a schizophrenic age led him to a multiplication of poetic voices, and so to working for the stage, where he was writing what was subsequently dubbed 'Theatre of the Absurd' before Beckett's or Ionesco's plays had ever been performed in public.

192 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published December 1, 1991

About the author

He earned a degree in literature and worked for a publishing house. He published several poetry collections in the 1930s before starting to write for the stage. After World War Two, Tardieu entered the world of radio and worked his way to head of dramatic programming and then director of programs at France-Music. The quality and success of French National Public Radio after World War Two has been attributed largely to Jean Tardieu.
Tardieu's works mingled with the ideals of the French New Theatre and used comedy to pick apart more traditional theatre. He is often associated with the Theatre of the Absurd.
Some of his work has been translated into English, including:
The Underground Lovers, and other experimental plays
Going...Going...Gone! The Client Dies Twice: Three Plays (Black Apollo Press, ISBN 1-900355-21-3)
The River Underground: Selected Poems & Prose
Some of his work is present in Julio Cortázar's 1963 novel Rayuela (Hopscotch). Tardieu's work is included in Chapter 152, entitled "The Abuse of Consciousness".
The French composer Germaine Tailleferre of Les Six, who was a harp student of Tardieu's mother Caroline Luigini and who first met Tardieu as a child, set several of Tardieu's poems to music notably in the "Concerto des Vaines Paroles" for Baritone Voice, Piano and Orchestra and in the cycle "Trois Poèmes de Jean Tardieu" for Voice and Piano.
He was a great friend of Jean René Bazaine who turned his poem L'Ombre, la branche into a fine illustrated art book.( Maeght Éditeur, 1977: 150 ex. with 16 colored litho's, 50 ex. with three added litho's.)