--- Mark Sullivan <
DJ-Anonyme@webtv.net> wrote:
> Mathew asked:
>
> "is there hardboiled poetry??"
>
> Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal? Gunrunner
Arthur
> Rimbaud's A Season in
> Hell? Michael Madsen's Burning in
Paradise?
Even by accepting a very large meaning for the label
hard-boiled applied to literature, I really do not think that
Rimbaud or Baudelaire qualifies (by their lives, yes
certainly, as they were either adventurer( Rimbaud) or mean
an though ( Baudelaire). Both revolutionised modern poetry
during the 19th century, and both were the typical
"counterculture" of their times, in their own individualistic
ways. But their poetry itself was certainly not hard-boiled,
even if some part could show real tough descriptions.
Speaking of Baudelaire, one of his other merits was to make
Edgar Allan Poe known in Europe by his masterful translations
into French of Poe's short stories and of some of his poems.
Baudelaire's translations are works of art by themselves (not
diminishing Poe's merit, of course).
Back to HB, I could suggest another poet who really qualifies
as HB, by his life and by his work: Francois Villon. He lived
in Paris during the middle of the 15th century, was a
university student and a
"truand", lived the life of the outlaws and his own life was
at risk many times. In his poems he depicts the misery of
life and fate, the tragic destinies of the culprits when
caught, life in taverns and bordellos... And he was using
some slang in his writings. Some of his poems like: La
Ballade des Pendus (Ballad for the hanging men) or his
Testament (The Will), still resonates meaningfully into our
times.
Another French (well, he was a Belgian actually) that could
qualify is Henri Michaux (born in 1899) by his forceful
descriptions of his own surreal world, and his total
destruction of reality. In texts that defies any
classification but that can be accepted as poems. Tough,
quick, and destructive of social conventions.
He found his inspiration by, under others, visiting far
countries like an explorer of the extreme, but on a
shoestring budget. Exacerbated individualist, he was never
part of any literary movement or chapel. Check "A Barbarian
in Asia" or "The Inside Space". He was also a painter, later
in his life.
Other area to search: the poets of the Paris Commune, in
1871's Paris- after the German invasion and victory of
1870-(Commune = time of the insurrection of the working class
helped by craftsmen, educators and some intellectuals that
created the first political Libertarian regime, derived from
the Anarchy movements
-nothing to do with the modern American meaning of this word-
Commune as a word covers also the terrible official
repression that followed the coming back of the traditional
govt by its army and with mass executions of the population)
There you have real hard-boiled texts, by all means,
especially poems and some songs written during this
period...
But I hear already Bill Denton knocking on the door as I
probably stretched the HB search too far...
E.Borgers Hard-boiled Mysteries http://www.geocities.com/Atens/6384
Polar Noir http://www.geocities.com/polarnoir
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