Thursday, January 30, 2014

Untitled

We had to write a poem for French class. Specifically, we had to use a certain grammatical construction and tense in our poem. And our poem had to be modeled after Le Message by Jacques Prévert. His poem is rather sad and dark; a rough and very poetic interpretation is that it discusses the loss of love but Prévert approaches that large theme in a rather prosaic manner using everyday things (chairs, doors, letters, rivers). Here it is in the French (translation here):
La porte que quelqu’un a ouverte
La porte que quelqu’un a refermée
La chaise où quelqu’un s’est assis
Le chat que quelqu’un a caressé
Le fruit que quelqu’un a mordu
La lettre que quelqu’un a lue
La chaise que quelqu’un a renversée
La porte que quelqu’un a ouverte
La route où quelqu’un court encore
Le bois que quelqu’un traverse
La rivière où quelqu’un se jette
L’hôpital où quelqu’un est mort.

Even without understanding the words, you can see how the construction of the lines is formalized and repeating. The last word, mort--it means what you think it does. Somebody is dead. Dark and sad.

Here is my poem:
Les jouets que mes chiens ont détruits.
Les coutures qu’ils ont fendues.
Les poupées qu’ils ont éviscérées.
La bourre que j’ai découverte dans le salon.
Les morceaux qu’ils ont poussés sur le lit.
Les jouets que les chiens ont aimés le plus.

Les laisses et les collets qu’ils ont portés.
Les heures que nous avons passées à marcher.
Les heures que nous avons passées à jouer.
La nourriture chère qu’ils ont mangée.
Les gâteries que j’ai faites.
Les jouets que je leur ai achetés.
And its translation:
The toys that my dogs destroyed.
The seams that they ripped.
The dolls that they eviscerated.
The stuffing that I discovered in the living room.
The bits that they pushed under the bed.
The toys that my dogs loved the most.

The leashes and collars that they wore.
The hours that we spent walking.
The hours that we spent playing.
The expensive food that they ate.
The treats that I made.
The toys that I bought them.
Oddly, I couldn't come up with a title for it (do you have any suggestions? It has to have multiple layers of meaning like Prévert's title). But the professor LOVED my creative verbs (éviscérer! détruire!). I was inspired in this by Prévert's use of se jeter, to throw oneself--what an interesting verb. It abruptly changes the tone in his poem. I also decided to stick with the "everyday things contain their own stories but are also part of larger stories" theme. But I decided to take a poke at the gloomy tone and made the first half of mine about the dogs tearing up their toys. 

(As an aside, I know the French take their literary arts very seriously, but I don't think a Frenchman would shiv me for taking liberties with Prévert.)

It was super fun to write. I had to use my dictionary a lot--but I learned a lot of new vocabulary in the process. Having fun with words in another language! That's progress!

4 comments:

BC Insanity said...

You know I can't stay away from french ;)
sur = on
sous = under

how about the last line that says to kinda finish on a similar note of Prevert

...
et tour l'amour que je leur ai donne (insert accents, since I have no clue how to do it on web)

BC Insanity said...

OK, that should say tout l'amour
not tour

BC Insanity said...

and how about
La devotion for a title

lilspotteddog said...

I actually had a working title of "les objets de desire". I like La Devotion. It has the layered meaning I want.

You are right about sous/sur. Missed that. But they could theoretically push bits ON the bed so the meaning isn't nonsensical. Sous is better though.

I thought about a final line like the one you suggest because it echoes the last line of the first section (toys the dogs loved). I could ditch the line about collars and leashes so the two sections have an equal number of lines (like Prevert's poem).

Good work, G!!!