Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

Given Baudelaire has been called the Father of Modern Poetry, I embarked upon reading Les Fleurs du Mal with a bit of trepidation. It was a collection I had wanted to read since grad school but simply never had the courage to open.

Before my review, however, I feel I must warn potential readers about the frustrations experienced reading Baudelaire on the Kindle. Here are a few notes:
- The Free Amazon Kindle Version: this is fine in terms of readability but an incomplete collection. Also, I found the translation dull and, upon finishing it, failed to see Baudelaire's impact on modern poetry.
- Wesleyan Poetry Series/Keith Waldrop Translation: I had heard this is an excellent translation and thought this is what I was purchasing on the Kindle. However, instead of getting this book, I got ...
- Oxford University Press/James McGowan Translation: This is what downloaded instead of the Waldrop version, and it is horribly unreadable. They did a TERRIBLE job producing this as an e-book - the French poems literally bleed into the English-translated poems, so you will be reading along and suddenly the English turns to French, and you need to page ahead to find where the English picks up again. Thus, while this is a very complete collection with a nice introduction and dynamic translation, it is an act of frustration to read, which is why it has taken me more than two months to finish the book.

Bottom line: DO NOT BUY ANY E-BOOK VERSIONS OF THE FLOWERS OF EVIL.

Back to Baudelaire . . .

So, I enjoyed the poems so much that I am buying a physical copy of the Keith Waldrop translation. Baudelaire is a tormented soul who has been searching for God and the meaning of life since birth and hangs on to his humanity by sheer force of will. He is not afraid to face humanity's dark side - starting with his own unseemly passions and twisted musings.

Sex, Death and Ennui - these are recurring themes in a showdown in the Garden of Good and Evil between the Poet and Satan, which Baudelaire acknowledges takes place in his mind:

The Enemy

When I was young I lived a constant storm,
Though now and then the brilliant suns shot through,
So in my garden few red fruits were born,
The rain and thunder had much to do.

Now are the autumn days of thought at hand,
And I must use the rake and spade to groom,
Rebuild and cultivate the washed-out land
The water had eroded deep as tombs.

And who knows if the flowers in my mind
In this poor sand, swept like a beach, will find
The food of soul to gain a healthy start?

I cry! I cry! Life feeds the seasons' maw
And that dark Enemy who gnaws our hearts
Battens on blood that drips into his jaws.

There are over 100 poems, and many of them speak of the curse of Ennui - boredom. Even in the opening poem, "To the Reader," Baudelaire warns that "One creature only is most foul and false! Though making no grand gestures, nor great cries, He willingly would devastate the earth And in one yawning swallow all the world; He is Ennui!"

Many excellent poems and even more excellent lines of verse that I could showcase. Here is one that struck me:

The Sorrows of the Moon

The moon tonight dreams vacantly, as if
She were a beauty cushioned at her rest
who strokes with wandering hand her lifting
Nipples, and the contour of her breasts;

Lying as if for love, glazed by the soft
Luxurious avalanche, dying in swoons,
She turns her eyes to visions - clouds aloft
Billowing hugely, blossoming in blue.

When sometimes from her stupefying calm
On to this earth she drops a furtive tear
Pale as an opal, iridescent, rare,

The poet, sleepless watchman, is the one
To take it up within his hallowed palm
And in his heart to hide it from the sun.

Because Baudelaire experienced such trauma publishing this book (he and his publisher were fined for creating an offense against public morals), I appreciate the following poem and see it as a nice (if not sarcastic) summary from the poet, himself:

Epigraph for a Condemned Book

Reader, you of calm, bucolic,
Artless, sober bonhomie,
Get rid of this Saturnian book
Of orgies and despondency.

Just throw it out! unless you've learned
Your rhetoric in Satan's school
You will not understand a word,
You'll think I'm hysterical.

But if your eye can brave the depths
And not be lost in gulfs or skies,
Read me, and learn to love this text;

O questing soul who suffers and
Keeps searching for your paradise
Have pity on me ... or be damned!

Being a lover of modern poetry, I appreciate Baudelaire's contribution and inspiration and look forward to future respites in his garden of contemplations.

I've only seen short excerpts of Baudelaire before (and usually prosy) so your examples here are much appreciated. As with all translations, I'm sure there's controversy about which is the best. In any case, I enjoyed the poems you quoted a great deal and have put this on my amazon wish list. It's a long overdue read for me as well.