BARBARA

 
BARBARA

By Jacques Prevert (France,1900-1977)

Translated from the French by Lawrence Ferlinghetti

Remember Barbara
It rained all day on Brest that day
And you walked smiling
Flushed enraptured streaming-wet
In the rain
Remember Barbara
It rained all day on Brest that day
And I ran into you in Siam Street
You were smiling
And I smiled too
Remember Barbara
You whom I didn't know
You who didn't know me
Remember
Remember that day still
Don't forget
A man was taking cover on a porch
And he cried your name
Barbara
And you ran to him in the rain
Streaming-wet enraptured flushed
And you threw yourself in his arms
Remember that Barbara
And don't be mad if I speak familiarly
I speak familiarly to everyone I love
Even if I've seen them only once
I speak familiarly to all who are in love
Even if I don't know them
Remember Barbara
Don't forget
That good and happy rain
On your happy face
On that happy town
That rain upon the sea
Upon the arsenal
Upon the Ushant boat
Oh Barbara
What shitstupidity the war
Now what's become of you
Under this iron rain
Of fire and steel and blood
And he who held you in his arms
Amorously
Is he dead and gone or still so much alive
Oh Barbara
It's rained all day on Brest today
As it was raining before
But it isn't the same anymore
And everything is wrecked
It's a rain of mourning terrible and desolate
Nor is it still a storm
Of iron and steel and blood
But simply clouds
That die like dogs
Dogs that disappear
In the downpour drowning Brest
And float away to rot
A long way off
A long long way from Brest
Of which there's nothing left.

Jacques Prevert’s poem “Barbara” is a haunting evocation of love, loss, and memory set against the destruction of the city of Brest in northwest France during World War II. The poem, first published in 1946, tells the story of a passionate love affair, tragically cut short by the outbreak of war. The poem is simple, straightforward, and lyrical. The eponymous Barbara is repeatedly urged to remember her joyful life before the war, how once she ran to her lover’s arms amid Atlantic squalls that washed over her city, bringing only “That good and happy rain/ On your happy face/On that happy town.” The war swept away Barbara’s lover, his fate agonizingly uncertain (“Is he dead and gone or still so much alive"), and reduced her once happy city to a landscape of  shattered rubble, destroyed  “Under this iron rain/ Of fire and steel and blood”.

How powerfully Prevert responds to the violence and subsequent disorientation of the twentieth century in this poem professing a belief in the redemptive power of humanity’s creative force, viz poetry. Try to read this poem aloud.  As the reader gets engaged in the process of reading the poem,  one can sense that it is exerting an emotional effect and creating a dialogue between itself, the voice of the poet, the characters discussed in the poem and the reader. 

Pervert describes this experience of entering into an intimate dialogue with a stranger: The poets speak of a quintessential pair of tragic lovers, which is represented by Barbara and her lover, but as the poem progresses these characters become internalized and therefore universal. The poet says to Barbara:

And I ran into you in Siam Street
You were smiling
And I smiled too

describing their encounter, which in the space of that smile turns them from strangers to lovers. This shift becomes evident as the poet continues to describe Barbara’s meeting with her ‘actual’ lover in very similar terms:

A man was taking cover on a porch
And he cried your name
Barbara
And you ran to him in the rain
Streaming-wet enraptured flushed
And you threw yourself in his arms

The following lines establish a lovers’ connection between the poet and Barbara, as well as the poet and anyone who has ever experienced love:

And don’t be mad if I speak familiarly
I speak familiarly to everyone I love
Even if I’ve seen them only once
I speak familiarly to all who are in love
Even if I don’t know them

Repetitions abound in the poem and include repetitions of phrases as well as symbols and themes. Prévert constantly calls out in Barbara: “Remember Barbara” and “Don’t forget,” he repeats the adjectives in different contexts, seeing “happy rain”, a “happy face,” a “happy town,” and “iron rain” made of “iron and steel and blood.” Greet explains this type of artistic expression in revolutionary terms, as she writes that “by exposing clichés, he negates a tired civilization; he affirms life’s essential value by creating new meanings for words or by renewing old ones. In describing the actions of a lover Prévert reverses the order of his repeated adjectives, so that “streaming-wet enraptured flushed” becomes “flushed enraptured streaming-wet,” magnifying the importance of the repeated action by adding another level to its meaning, as if it were a magical phrase that has to be spoken a certain way under certain conditions for the magic to work. 

On the other hand, when Prévert describes the devastation of war and destruction of the city of Brest he thwarts the melodiousness and symmetry of the repetition, which starts with “this iron rain/Of fire and steel and blood,” and is repeated as “a storm/Of iron and steel and blood.” Similarly, the reader is caught off guard to read about the “shitstupidity the war,” which is so jarring that it in every way reminds us what love is being set against, and what it is expected to conquer. Prévert writes of what he sees is left of Breast after the destruction, and what bares no resemblance to either the passion that built the city nor the violence that destroyed it, but what resembles a deserted space not even fit for graves and memories.

The repetitions and world play in this poem remind the reader of the overall lullaby-tone of the poem, and the feeling of familiarity between himself and the poet grows into an experience of love itself: the reader becomes one of the lovers.

Ref: William C. Chittick and A-T. Tymieniecka - Sharing Poetic Expressions__ Beauty, Sublime, Mysticism in Islamic and Occidental

Peter Meusburger, Michael Heffernan, Edgar Wunder - Cultural Memories_ The Geographical Point of View-Springer

Jacques Prevert-Criticism