Contents
THE CITY OF LIGHT
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE Trip to Paris
BLAISE CENDRARS From The Prose of the Trans-Siberian and of Little Jeanne of France
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE Twilight: Daybreak
PAUL VERLAINE The Noise of the Cabarets
JULES LAFORGUE Spring Evening on the Boulevards
SARA TEASDALE Paris in Spring
E.E. CUMMINGS “Paris;this April sunset completely utters”
TRISTAN CORBIERE Paris At Night
ADAM ZAGAJEWSKI Square d’Orleans
FRANCOIS COPPEE Paris
PHILIPPE SOUPAULT Horizon
CHARLES BUKOWSKI Paris
HENRI COLE Paris Is My Seroquel
RAYMOND QUENEAU Cleanliness
GREGORY CORSO Paris
HAS PARIS CHANGED? Willis Barnstone
EUSTACHE DESCHAMPS Paris Is Beyond Compare
THE SIGHTS
LANGSTON HUGHES Montmartre
OSCAR WILDE Le Jardin des Tuileries
JACQUES ROUBAUD To the Eiffel Tower
GALWAY KINNELL Les Invalides
JACQUES PREVERT Place du Carrousel
FADY JOUDAH Arc de Triomphe
OSIP MANDELSTAM Notre Dame
RON PADGETT Bastille Day
ELIZABETH BISHOP Sleeping on the Ceiling
EZRA POUND In a Station of the Metro
JEAN TARDIEU The Seine in Paris
COUNTEE CULLEN At the Etoile
THE STREETS
JACQUES ROUBAUD from Arrondissements
MARILYN HACKER Rue des Ecouffes
CZESLAW MILOSZ Bypassing Rue Descartes
HAROLD NORSE beat hotel, 9 rue git-le-coeur
JEAN FOLLAIN From Streets
MAX JACOB La Rue Ravignan
LEON-PAUL FARGUE At Saint-Germain
PARISIANS
FRANCOIS VILLON Ballade of Forgiveness
PIERRE REVERDY Street Circus
MAURICE ROLLINAT The Mime
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA Clochard
RITA DOVE The Island Women of Paris
AIME CESAIRE The Griffin
HEDI KADDOUR The Bus Driver
TRISTAN TZARA The great lament of my obscurity three
MARIE PONSOT Rain All Night, Paris
VICENTE HUIDOBRO Blind
GERARD de NERVAL A Path in the Luxembourg
JACQUES ROUBAUD Dream of February 11, 19--, Dream of August 17, 19--
THE CITY OF LOVE
ROBERT DESNOS I Have Dreamed of You So Much
PIERRE de RONSARD From Sonnets pour Helene (40)
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE From Zone
MARY JO SALTER Boulevard du Montparnasse
ANDRE BRETON The Free Union
PAUL ELUARD The Earth Is Blue Like an Orange
JACQUES PREVERT Paris at Night, The Garden, Immense and Red
GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE Le Pont Mirabeau
PAUL VERLAINE Il Bacio
JEAN GENET From A Song of Love
JOYCE MANSOUR I Want to Sleep with You
STEPHANE MALLARME “O So Dear From Far Away, So Near and White”
PAUL ELUARD Lady Love
EDWARD HIRSCH Colette
GRACE CAVALIERI Hotel Saint Germain
JAMES FENTON In Paris With You
EXPATRIATES
CESAR VALLEJO Black Stone On A White Stone
MARINA TSVETAEVA In Paris
PABLO NERUDA Goodbye to Paris
RICHARD WRIGHT From Haiku, This Other World
GERTRUDE STEIN From Hotel Francois 1er
ZELDA FITZGERALD From Letter to F. Scott Fitzgerald
ERNEST HEMINGWAY Montparnasse
VLADIMIR NABOKOV From Paris Poem
LEOPOLD SEDAR SENGHOR In Memoriam
RAINER MARIA RILKE “You don’t know nights of love?”
JULIO CORTAZAR Le Dome
SAMUEL BECKETT Sanies II
STANLEY MOSS From Mon Pere, Elegy for Paul Celan
NAZIM HIKMET Before the Time Runs Out, My Rose
TOURISTS
MONA VAN DUYN At Pere Lachaise
VICTORIA KENNEFICK Paris Syndrome
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI Plan Du Centre De Paris A Vol D’Oiseau
JAMES WRIGHT A First Day in Paris
KENNETH KOCH To the French Language
DAVID KIRBY To a French Structuralist
BILLY COLLINS January in Paris
WISLAWA SZYMBORSKA Vocabulary
CLARENCE MAJOR No One Goes to Paris in August
FOOD & DRINK
HANNAH MORE From Florio
BARBARA CROOKER Les Boulangers
WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY From The Ballad of Bouillabaisse
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE Be Drunk
PIERRE MARTORY Wine
ANTONIN ARTAUD Verlaine Drinks
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE The Soul of the Wine
THE ARTS
FRANK O’HARA Poulenc
JAMES A. EMANUEL Bojangles and Jo
LANGSTON HUGHES Jazz Band in a Parisian Cabaret
LUIS LAZARO TIJERINA Chet Baker in Paris
JON STALLWORTHY Toulouse-Lautrec at the Moulin Rouge
GABRIELA MISTRAL Rodin’s Thinker
DELMORE SCHWARTZ From Seurat’s Sunday Afternoon Along the Seine
ROBERT HAYDEN Monet’s “Waterlilies”
ROSANNA WARREN Renoir
JAMES MERRILL For Proust
EMILY FRAGOS Theatre de l’Odeon
MARK DOTY Couture
DAVID LEHMAN French Movie
HOMAGE TO THE POET
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE From To Victor Hugo
YVES BONNEFOY Mallarme’s Tomb
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI Triste Corbiere
STEPHANE MALLARME The Tomb of Charles Baudelaire
CESAR MORO Andre Breton
GUY GOFFETTE Max Jacob
LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI In Paris In A Loud Dark Winter
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE A Ballad of Francois Villon
YVES BONNEFOY Verlaine’s Tomb
RENE CHAR You Did Well To Leave, Arthur Rimbaud!
BENJAMIN PERET Portrait of Paul Eluard
GERALD STERN Desnos
RON PADGETT Little Elegy
GAEL TURNBULL Homage to Jean Follain
TRISTAN TZARA The Death of Guillaume Apollinaire
REVOLUTION
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH From The Prelude, Book 9
VICTOR HUGO From The Year of Horrors, “November 1870, On the Ramparts of
Paris, at Nightfall”
HEINRICH HEINE Marie Antoinette
BENJAMIN PERET Louis XVI Goes To The Guillotine
ARTHUR RIMBAUD Parisian War Cry
WAR, OCCUPATION, RESISTANCE
BLAISE CENDRARS In Paris
JULES SUPERVIELLE Rain and the Tyrants
LOUIS ARAGON Richard II Forty
PAUL ELUARD Curfew
ROBERT DESNOS Rue Saint-Martin Couplets
PIERRE REVERDY From The Song of the Dead
PAUL ELUARD Courage
PAUL ELUARD Liberty
JEAN FOLLAIN “There’s no more war”
