Saturday, July 14, 2012

If you imagine


 Raymond  Queneau

Translated by Michael Benedikt

If you imagine
If you imagine
little sweetie little sweetie
If you imagine
this will this will this
will last forever
this season of
this season of
season of love
you are fooling yourself
little sweetie little sweetie
you are fooling yourself

If you think little one
If you think ah ah
that that rosy complexion
that waspy waist
those lovely muscles
the enamel nails
nymph thigh
And your light foot
If you think little one
that will that will that
Will last forever
you are fooling yourself
little sweetie little sweetie
you are fooling yourself

The lovely days disappear
the lovely holidays
Suns and planets
go round in a circle
but you my little one
you go straight
toward you know not what
very slowly draw near
the sudden wrinkle
the weighty fat
the triple chin
the flabby muscle
come gather gather
the roses the roses
roses of life
and may their petals
Be a calm sea
Of happiness
come gather gather
if you  don’t do it
you are fooling yourself
little sweetie little sweetie
you are fooling yourself


This is a light spirited poem. I liked the casual tone, the simple effect of repetition, , the warning that nothing is going to last forever . The poem is appealing as it urges us to create happiness when things are in good shape and collect whatever roses our life offers.

Raymond Queneau,  (born Feb. 21, 1903, Le Havre, France—died Oct. 25, 1976, Paris) is ultra modern  French author who produced some of the most important French prose and poetry of the mid-20th century.

From Queneau’s Surrealist period in the 1920s he retained a taste for verbal juggling, a tendency toward black humour, and a derisive posture toward authority. His puns, sneers, spelling extravaganzas, and other linguistic contortions concealed a total pessimism, an obsession with death. His corrosive laughter rang out in the seemingly light verse of his childhood reminiscences in  “Oak and Dog”, a novel in verse, and in more philosophical poems such as “A Pocket Cosmogony” and  “If You Imagine”.

The pattern of his novels was similar: from a familiar setting—a suburb, an amusement park, or a Paris subway—emerged the vision of an absurd world. Such is the format of "The Bark Tree" (1933) ; Zazie (1959) , probably his best-known work "The Blue Flowers(1960)  and  The Flight of Icarus (1968) . These chronicles of simple people are recounted in language that ranges from everyday slang to the loftiest poetic diction.

 One of Queneau's most influential works belonging to his early years  is "Exercises in Style" (1947) , which tells the simple story of a man's seeing the same stranger twice in one day. It tells that short story in 99 different ways, demonstrating the tremendous variety of styles in which storytelling can take place .  



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