BOO KS
135
Tu lis les prospectus les catalogues les a/fiches qui chantent tout haut
V oita La poesie ce matin et pour la prose il
y
ales journaux
Il
y
ales livraisons
Ii
25
centimes pleines d'aventures policieres*
The continuity of these poems is scrambled a good deal, and they were
accordingly labeled "cubist" when they first appeared. What still gives
them their freshness, though, is Apollinaire's ability to turn his catalogues
into vivid symbols of that most ancient of poetic themes-the transience
of time. Nothing dates so quickly as the very latest fashion; and each
detail of Apollinaire, accentuating the frenzy of change, at the same time
evokes the will-of-the-wisp poignancy of the uncapturable moment.
These poems started what might be called the
wagon-lit
school of mod–
ern international exoticism, in which far-flung place-names are sprinkled
as liberally as labels on a traveler's trunk. A good deal of the early
Archibald MacLeish owes as much to this aspect of Apollinaire as to
Ezra Pound.
Lately, however, it h as been recognized that the increas ing popu-
*
"You read the prospectuses the catalogues the billboards th at sing loudly/Here
is poetry this morning and as for prose thcre are the newspapers/There are the
serials costing 25 cents full of cops-and-robbers stories"
THE SCHOOL OF LETTERS
Indiana University
SUMMER 1956
In the Summer of 1956, the School of Letters will
offer courses by Richard Ellmann, H. Northrop Frye,
Karl Shapiro and others.
Full information will be available about 1 January
1956. Inquiries should be sent to the Director,
Newton P. Stallknecht
The School of Letters
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
