Robert Desnos: Seven poems translated by Louis Simpson

American Poetry Review, The, Jan 1996 by Simpson, Louis

Robert Desnos was born in Paris on July 4, 1900. His father, a fat, jovial little man, was in charge of fowl and game at Les Halles. His mother was a pale, blond, self-effacing woman.* Robert attended a communal school, then a lyc. He clerked in a drugstore and began making notes of his dreams. His first poems appeared in a socialist review, La Tribune des Jeunes. These were followed by other poems, and he was often seen in Left Bank bars and cafes.

In 1920 he served with the army in Morocco. On his return he joined the Surrealists and became known for his ability to fall asleep under hypnosis and ... but let Louis Aragon tell it: "At the cafe in the hubbub of voices, in plain daylight, and the elbowing, Robert Desnos has only to shut his eyes, and he speaks, and in the midst of the bocks, the saucers, the whole place collapses with a prophetic roar. ... Let those who question this formidable sleeper merely give him a nudge and immediately prophecy, the voice of magic, of revelation, of Revolution, the tone of the fanatic and the apostle rises to the surface. In other circumstances Desnos, little as he lends himself to that delirium, would become the leader of a religion, the founder of a city, the tribune of a liberated people. He speaks, he draws, he writes."**

In December of 1922 he published "Rrose Selavy" in Litterature. The idea was borrowed from Marcel Duchamp--people frequently borrowed from Duchamp. Duchamp was in New York but Desnos claimed to be in telepathic communication with him. "Rrose Selavy" was a word-game: you used the sound of words as a springboard for free-association. In those days when Freudian psychology was new, Rrose Selavy attracted some attention. Associations that depend entirely on sound cannot be translated ... for example: "Perdue sur la mer sans fin Rrose Selavy mangera-t-elle du fer apres avoir mange ses mains?"

Desnos became a journalist. In 1922 his first articles appeared in Paris Journal. He wrote about movies for that newspaper--several of the Surrealists had a keen interest in movies. Not, however, Andre Breton, the leader and organizer of Surrealism ... Breton had a churchly view of the movement. Desnos on the other hand enjoyed all the things you could read about in newspapers. He wrote for Le Soir and Paris-Matinal. Beside movies he liked popular music. He wrote articles about the mannequins of Paris, the infrequency of buses, and Jack the Ripper, and now and then he managed to get in something about a poet.

For ten years he was devoted to a "chanteuse," Yvonne George. He worked as a combination of editor and accountant at the Baillere medical library. In 1928 we find him making a film, L Etoile de mer, in collaboration with Man Ray. He published movie scenarios. In 1929 he attended a press conference in Havana. Along with these and other activities he was writing poems: 1930 saw the publication of Corps et bien, a collection of all his poems since 1919.

For some time Andre Breton had been saying that the Surrealists should work to bring about a revolution. He wanted Surrealists to work together with the Marxists. But Marti, the head of the Communist Party, said, "Why do you need Surrealism?" To be a Communist would be enough ... it should be everything. So Breton broke with the Communists. But some of the Surrealists, among them Aragon and Desnos, would not follow-they remained committed to Marx. Breton and Desnos quarreled, and Desnos left the Surrealist movement.

In his "Second Manifesto of Surrealism" (1930) Breton attacked Desnos. He said that Desnos's journalism had made him unable to respond to the serious question Surrealism had raised, whether or not to go along with Marxism. His journalistic activity had completely consumed the Surrealist part of himself--he was now even writing alexandrines]

True, there is a difference in the kind of poetry Desnos wrote after his break with Surrealism. He is using ordinary language, reaching out to the kind of people who listen to the radio and read newspapers. From 1932 on he did his journalism over the radio. The broadcast of his poem, Complainte de Fantomas, written in rhyme and meter, reached a large audience.

When Yvonne George died he became devoted to Youki, the wife of the Japanese painter Foujita. One day Foujita went out for cigarettes and didn't come back, and Desnos and Youki were married.

In 1939 Desnos was called up for military service. When the Germans invaded France, his regiment, along with the rest of the French army, packed it in. After a short spell as a prisoner of war he made his way back to Paris and Youki.

Then he began his own war with the Germans. As the member of a press group he was able to meet with the Nazi who gave out the news, and he passed it on, uncensored, to his contacts in the Resistance. He made speeches in bars about the ridiculous Occupation. He wrote poems against the collaborationists, using an assumed name, and these were passed around. He was practically asking to be arrested, and one day the Gestapo came and took him away. He was placed in a camp at Compiegne.