Daniel F. Gerhartz – Dawn of Hope (2007)
One night you
came into my room,
cuddled into bed with me
Small cold feet,
Downy head
filled with child-questions CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Paula Gocker-Roth: Night visitor
Tag Archives: childhood
Charles Kingsley: A Farewell
Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) was an Anglican priest, a university professor, social reformer, historian and novelist. I have chosen the following short poem from his collection Songs, Ballads, etc. published in Volume 1 of The works of Charles Kingsley. A longer version (with 3 stanzas) has been given in Poets’ Corner. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Minou Drouet et René Julliard
Minou Drouet et René Julliard (février 1956) – Le Figaro
Minou Drouet et René Julliard entretenaient une relation complexe mais asymétrique. Pour l’éditeur, Minou fut tout d’abord un écrivain à succès, même si tous deux se lièrent d’amitié et correspondirent. Mais pour la petite fille, Julliard fut d’abord un ami, qu’elle surnommait « ma Sonate », et comme avec ses autres amis, elle lui exprima tout son amour ; mais bientôt elle souhaita qu’il fût son père (elle vivait uniquement avec sa mère et sa grand-mère adoptives) : CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Minou Drouet, le génie écrasé de l’enfance
Roger Hauert – Minou Drouet (ca.1956) – from Cabinet n° 40 (2010/11)
Enfant intelligente et extrêmement sensible, esprit libre et immensément créatif, Minou Drouet irritait de nombreux adultes. Plusieurs crièrent à l’imposture, affirmant qu’elle ne pouvait en aucun cas être l’auteur des poèmes et lettres publiés sous son nom. Certains la considéraient comme un monstre ou un animal de cirque. D’autres essayaient d’en faire une petite fille normale ou un poète comme les autres. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Minou Drouet : Je n’avais qu’un ami
Sir Joshua Reynolds – Miss Jane Bowles (c.1775) – The Wallace Collection
Enfant extrêmement sensible, Minou Drouet eut à souffrir de la cruauté aveugle des adultes, non seulement à travers les attaques contre elle dans les médias, comme je l’ai expliqué dans mes précédents articles, mais aussi dans la sévérité de son éducation. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Minou Drouet : Poème pour une chanson
Roger Hauert – Minou Drouet – dans Poèmes (1956)
Le poème suivant rappelle « Chanson », celui donné à la fin de l’article précédent, par sa tristesse et aussi par les thèmes du bateau, du sang et de la larme. Enfant extrêmement sensible, Minou souffrit d’avoir été exhibée comme un animal de cirque, suivie par les journalistes et surtout accusée d’imposture : on prétendit en effet que sa mère avait écrit les poèmes et lettres publiées en son nom. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Le chant du cœur de Minou Drouet
Roger Hauert – Minou Drouet – dans Poèmes (1956)
Mon cœur est un immense clavier dont les mots sont les touches, et ma tendresse et ma peine et ma passion de la musique y jouent pour moi. Ce n’est pas de ce clavier-là que je rêve, c’est de celui de ma forêt.
(Minou Drouet, Lettre à Élise Nat, Arbre, mon ami, p. 99)
Minou (Marie-Noëlle) Drouet, née le 24 juillet 1947, connut un immense succès dans la deuxième moitié des années 1950 grâce à ses poèmes écrits entre ses six et douze ans. Elle fut également l’objet de violentes controverses dans les médias et les milieux littéraires. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
John Crowe Ransom: Janet Waking
painting by Konstantin Razumov – from user pkfnf on liveinternet.ru
In this other well-known poem by Ransom, a little girl wakes up and finds that her hen has died, which causes her a great grief. The setting of this little childhood drama in a farm reflects the idyllic view of country life held by ‘Southern Agrarians’. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
John Crowe Ransom: Bells for John Whiteside’s Daughter
Robie Macauley – John Crowe Ransom at Kenyon College (1941) – from Wikimedia Commons
John Crowe Ransom (April 30th, 1888 — July 3rd, 1974) was an American teacher, writer and editor. He is renowned both as a poet and a literary critic. He wrote most of his poems between 1915 and 1927. Together with fifteen other academics and students at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, he founded the group called ‘the Fugitives’ after their magazine The Fugitive (1922–1925). They had a special interest in Modernist poetry, and they published works by Modernist poets, but mainly from the Southern part of the United States of America (the former Confederacy). In 1930, he joined a group of twelve writers who would be called ‘Southern Agrarians’. They denounced industrialism and urbanization, which they saw as an alienating force destroying traditional culture, and they counterposed to it the traditional values of an agarian economy, as it existed in the South before the Civil War. As writes the Poetry Foundation: CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Eva, Lovely Girl and Defective Robot
This is a slightly extended version of an October 2014 article (now here) in Pigtails in Paint. A French translation can be found here. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Gertrude Chataway, Lewis Carroll’s forgotten child-friend
Lewis Carroll – Gertrude Chataway, lying on sofa (c.1876) – Harry Ransom Center, The University of Texas at Austin
Everyone knows about Lewis Carroll’s friendship with Alice Pleasance Liddell, who inspired the main character in his famous books Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass; indeed, after a rowing boat travelling during which Carroll regaled Alice and her two sisters with a fantastic story of a girl named Alice who had fallen into a rabbit-hole, she asked him to write it down, and so came Alice’s Adventures Under Ground, the initial version of the first book. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Kids have gifts — when one trusts them
Russian TV – Bella Devyatkina
All too often, adults think that children by their nature should be doing childish things and remaining in their childish world, rather than imitating adults and their activities; this is the motto “let kids be kids.” Thus they are left in ignorance of what one considers as “beyond their age,” and if they show too much interest in such “beyond” things and inquire too much about them, they will be answered “don’t touch,” “stay away,” “this is not of your age,” “you are too young for that” or “anyway you can’t understand.” This makes future adults who will be ignorant, backward, immature and dependent on authority. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Fleurs déchaînées
Cicely Mary Barker – A Flower Fairy Alphabet: The Fuchsia Fairy (1934)
L’amour est vierge, surtout après avoir fait l’amour. D’où l’on voit l’inanité des efforts frénétiques pour empêcher les enfants d’en faire l’expérience, sous prétexte qu’ils seraient innocents : car l’amour représente la chose la plus innocente qui soit. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Francis Thompson: The Poppy
Vladislav Nagornov – Enfant – from lusile17.centerblog.net
This well-known poem appeared in Thompson’s first volume Poems in 1893. It is dedicated to Monica, the eldest of the four Meynell daughters. It was probably written in 1891 when she was 11 years old. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
Francis Thompson: To Olivia
Bryce Cameron Liston – Sweetness and Light – from listonart.com
In the “Biographical Note” introducing the book Selected Poems of Francis Thompson, Wilfrid Meynell writes of Francis Thompson:
The children of the family in London, into which he was received, were the subjects of Poppy, The Making of Viola, To Monica Thought Dying, To my Godchild—all in the first book of Poems; while two of their number have a noble heritage in Sister Songs. Constant to the end, when he died some newly pencilled lines were found, addressed “To Olivia,” a yet younger sister, recalling the strains of fifteen years before.
Indeed, this poem dedicated to the fourth Meynell daughter was published by Wilfrid Meynell after Thompson’s death. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…
