Selected Poems

by Saint-John Perse, Mary Ann Caws

The French poet Saint-John Perse (1887-1975) succeeded, according to critic Roger Caillois, “in giving as a scene for his wholly spiritual chronicles a kind of supreme civilization, composed of the essence of those which history records and going beyond them in grandeur and majesty.” In this bilingual edition of the Selected Poems, editor Mary Ann Caws has assembled extracts from all his major works––Anabasis, Praises, Exile, Rains, Snows, Winds, Seamarks, Chronique, Birds, and Song for an Equinox, in translations by T. S. Eliot, Louise Varse, Denis Devlin, Hugh Chisholm, Wallace Fowlie, Robert Fitzgerald, and Richard Howard

Genres: Poetry, Nobel Prize

143 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 1982

About the author

Works of French poet and diplomat Alexis Saint-Léger Léger under pen name of Saint-John Perse include Anabase (1924) and Chronique (1960); he won the Nobel Prize of 1960 for literature.

He came from an old Bourguignon family, which settled in the Antilles in the 17th century and returned at the end of the 19th century.

Perse studied law at Bordeaux and, after private studies in political science, went into the service in 1914. A brilliant career ensued. He served first in the embassy at Peking. People published his work chiefly under the pseudonyms. After various reflections on the impressions of his childhood, he wrote in China. An epic puzzled many critics and gave rise to the suggestion that an Asian ably understands it better than by a westerner.

He later in the foreign office held top positions under Aristide Briand as its administrative head.

He left for the United States in 1940, and the regime at Vichy deprived him of his citizenship and possessions. From 1941 to 1945, he served as adviser to the Library of Congress. After the war, he resumed not his career and in 1950 retired officially with the title of ambassador. He made the United States his permanent residence.

After he settled in the United States, he wrote much of his work. Exil (Exile) (1942) fully masters man, merge, imagery, and diction.
* Poème l'Etrangère (Poem to a Foreign Lady), 1943;
* Pluies (Rains) (1943);
* Neiges (Snows) (1944);
* Vents (Winds) (1946) of war and peace blow well within and outside man;
* In Amers (Seamarks) (1957), the sea redounds as an image of the timelessness of man.
His abstract epic followed.

People awarded him "for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry which in a visionary fashion reflects the conditions of our time."

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Of all the poets who have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, the 1960 Nobel laureate Saint-John Perse (1887-1975) is one of the least read today. It was only through the composers Elliott Carter and Kaija Saariaho, who have written music inspired by his poetry, that I discovered the man. Yet, he is a fascinating figure, whose poetric voice is completely unlike that of his peers in 20th-century France. Mary Ann Caws has done a great service here by assembling selections from all Perse's works, in authoritative translations by figures like T.S. Eliot and Robert Fitzgerald.

Saint-John Perse was the pen-name of Alexis Leger, who rose to the very top of the French foreign ministry before he was deprived of his French citizenship by the Vichy government in 1940 and sailed to America. A diplomat who had gone to exotic non-Western countries like China, Perse set much of his poetry in some kind of anonymous Oriental civilization that could have been Persia or Ur or Cilicia, with desert sands, agorae, and altars. The poetry after his residency in America, the bulk of his oeuvre, adds a persistent interest in exile as the natural state of man. Perse wrote no real short poems; all of his poems are very long and epic in scale.

Not only are Perse's poetic themes unusual, but the poetic language itself is remarkable indeed. While Perse often stuck to the alexandrine, the standard metre of French poetry, his mature poetry was generally formatted into paragraphs. The major sections of the poems are often delineated by repeated calls, as when in "Amers" (Seamarks) we find:

"Poésie pour accompagner la marche d'une récitation en l'honneur de la Mer. / Poésie pour assister le chant d'une marche au pourtour de la Mer. / Comme l'entreprise du tour d'autel et la gravitation du choeur au circuit de la strophe."

Perse's poetry is by no means flawless. I find the poem "Pluies" (Rains) something of a failure. Even in the very best poetry Perse often resorts to clumsy alliteration, as in "Exil" when one finds "O Manieur d'aigles par leus angles, et Nourrisseur de filles les plus aigres souns la plume de fer." Furthermore, I'm unhappy that Caws left out the one passage from "Amers" (beginning "Et vous, Mers...") that is probably the most talked-about of the poem. Nonetheless, Perse is an exciting poet that is unfairly neglected today. Consider getting Roger Little's guide Saint-John Perse alongside this.

[Steve · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of 5 star poetry trapped in a frustrating edition. Most of the poems are excerpts from larger works. Virtually no context is provided. At least with the "Anabasis" excerpt (Saint-John Perse's most famous work) you know that the source for the poem is Xenophon's famous account of the Greek mercenaries march through Persia in 401 BC. But you're pretty much on your own trying to figure out the sources for the rest of the excerpts. Maybe that's not important to you, but it is to me. I don't need everything explained, but I do like a bone thrown my way every once in a while. That said, you are however left with some gorgeous dream-like language to ponder. For some reason I was reminded (more than a bit) of early Lord Dunsany. That's a good thing.

[Noel Cisneros · Rating 5 out of 5]

Antología que compila fragmentos de algunos de los libros más importantes de Saint John-Perse (Elogios, Anábasis, Lluvia, Nieve, Exilio, Vientos, Mares) para ofrecer un panorama amplio de su poesía. Se agradece que la traducción transmita el sentido y mantenga un eco del estilo del original, así mismo la introducción, hecha también por el traductor Jorge Zalamea, que ofrece un acercamiento a la figura del hombre que fue Saint John-Perse. La nostalgía, la evocación están en la raíz de esta poesía hecha de versículos. Las preguntas forman parte de su estilo, la voz poética constantemente lanza cuestionamientos para imbuyen a quien lee en el estado nostálgico o de ensoñación que busca el poema ("Si no la infancia, ¿qué había entonces allí que no hay ahora?").

[Ezekiel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A sensuous, lyrical ode to expansiveness, to myth and archetype, and to language. Time and being, compressed, enfolded - petals in a cosmic garden. This slimmest of selections leaves you tunefully desiring.

"...Be silent, weakness, and you, beloved fragrance in the night like the very almond of night.
Wandering all over the shores, wandering all over the seas, be silent, gentleness, and you, presence, arrayed with wings at my saddle's height.
I shall resume my Numidian flight, skirting the inalienable sea...No vervain on my lips, but still on the tongue, like a salty substance, this ferment of the old world.
Nitre and natron are themes of exile. Our thoughts run to action on bony tracks. Lightning lays bare to me the bed of immense designs. In vain the storm removes the bourns of absence.
Those who went on their quest to the great Atlantic Indies, those who scent the new idea in the freshness risen from the abyss, those who blow with horns at the gates of the future
Know that on the sands of exile there hiss the high passions coiled beneath the lightning's whip...O Prodigal in the salt and foam of June! keep alive in our midst the occult power of your song!
Like him who says to the emissary, and this is his message: "Veiled be the faces of our women; raised be the faces of our sons; and the order is: wash the stone of your sills...I shall whisper low the name of the springs in which tomorrow we shall plunge a pure wrath."

--from "Exile" by Saint-John Perse (transl. Denis Devlin)

[rue · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was the first poetry anthology that i did not stop to analyse but just let the words flow. the diction is magical and soft, but i would definitely have to come back and re-read it analytically. the introduction at the beginning was elucidating and provided a great background to who saint-john perse was.

if you are getting into french literature and poetry this is definitely a good place to start.

[Bill · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is great to have, but if you love Saint-John Perse as I do it is well worth investing in the hardback Collected Works, which unfortunately is out of print. He has been blessed by accurate translations into English, many which he collaborated on. He is a great poet and his reputation for being obscure is a bit baffling. He reaches heights of ecstasy you'd find in Whitman.

[Michael Pennington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magical. Mystical.

[Adam · Rating 1 out of 5]

Painfully bad. Painful because there are a couple of great lines early on that led me to keep plowing through for more.

I borrowed this book from the library because I read Bradbury reference Perse in an interview. I don't know. I'm baffled.