Aubade, par Émile Blémont

Zinaida Serebriakova - Sleeping girl in the blue
Zinaida Serebriakova – Sleeping girl in the blue (Katyusha on a blanket) ( 1923) – provient de Pigtails in Paint

Voici mon troisième choix dans Les matins d’or et les nuits bleues, la première partie du recueil Les pommiers en fleur : idylles de France et de Normandie (1891). Le poète tente d’éveiller son aimée qui se complaît dans le sommeil, il la gronde comme une enfant. Il l’invite à l’accompagner dans les bois pour y célébrer leur amour. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Pet’s Punishment, by Joseph Ashby-Sterry

Angelo Cozzi - Anna
Angelo Cozzi – Anna – from Pigtails in Paint

Although Ashby-Sterry loved girls of various ages, he clearly stated his preference for 16-year-old ones, while he often called younger ones ‘pet.’ This shows that he did not love them in the same manner as older ones, and in some way he considered them as inferior beings. Sometimes, he presented them as little animals. For instance one poem in the collection Boudoir Ballads is titled “Little Chinchilla” (with subtitle “A Symphony in Fur”), and on first reading one wonders whether it is about a girl or a little furry animal; now, a poem in his other collection The Lazy Minstrel, titled “January,” confirms that he writes about a girl: one reads “A merry maiden” and “To Miss Chinchilla you confide, / How proud you are to be her guide.” Another poem in the latter collection, “The Kitten,” explicitly compares a 10-year-old girl to a kitten. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Katharine Bradley’s first love poems for Edith Cooper

Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper
Katharine Bradley and Edith Cooper

The English poet and playwright Katharine Harris Bradley was born on October 26 or 27, 1846, the second daughter of Charles Bradley, a tobacco merchant, and Emma Harris. Her father died in 1848. Her elder sister Emma, born in 1835, married John Robert Cooper in 1860. Their first daughter Edith Emma Cooper was born on January 12, 1862. After the birth of her second daughter Amy Katharine in 1865, Emma Cooper became invalid for life. In July 1867, Katharine Bradley and her widowed mother joined the Cooper family, and Katharine took care of the household and her two nieces. Her mother Emma Harris died in 1868, leaving Katharine as legal guardian of Edith and Amy. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Au saut du lit, par Émile Blémont

Jules-Alexis Muenier - Retour du jardin
Jules-Alexis Muenier – Retour du jardin – provient de tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.com

Dans Les matins d’or et les nuits bleues, la première partie du recueil Les pommiers en fleur : idylles de France et de Normandie d’Émile Blémont (1891), j’ai choisi ce beau poème, plein de tendresse, où l’auteur chante l’éveil et l’amour envers sa « petite inspiratrice », avec qui il veut être « comme Dante et Béatrice » et cueillir des fleurs qui ne se faneront jamais. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

To Olivia, by Francis Thompson

Bryce Cameron Liston - Can Spring be Far
Bryce Cameron Liston – Can Spring be Far – from tuttartpitturasculturapoesiamusica.com

Wilfrid and Alice Meynell had eight children: Sebastian, Monica, Everard, Madeleine, Viola, Vivian, Olivia, and Francis. 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 youngest Meynell daughter, born in 1890, was published by Wilfrid Meynell several years after Thompson’s death in 1907. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Un poème par Raymonde, de la Pédagogie Freinet

Hémérocalle
Hémérocalle (2019) – Wikimedia Commons

Voici mon troisième extrait du recueil Comme je te le dis ! publié par la Pédagogie Freinet en 1978 chez Casterman. Tout comme le précédent, ce poème sans titre a été écrit par une fille de l’école de Mornac (Charente). Sa beauté repose sur une grande simplicité, où le sentiment s’exprime directement, sans détour. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Les matins d’or et les nuits bleues d’Émile Blémont

William Stott of Oldham - Girl in a Meadow
William Stott of Oldham – Girl in a Meadow (1880) – Tate N05031

Émile Blémont, de son vrai nom Léon-Émile Petitdidier, est un écrivain français, né à Paris le 17 juillet 1839 et mort dans cette même ville le 1er février 1927. Très prolifique, il a laissé de nombreux recueils de poèmes, plusieurs pièces de théâtre, des traductions françaises d’œuvres en anglais, etc. Très actif dans son milieu professionnel, il fonda et anima plusieurs revues littéraires ; il fut également l’un des fondateurs de la Société des poètes français et de la Maison de poésie. Il fut lié à Victor Hugo, aux poètes du Parnasse et aux poètes symbolistes, en particulier Paul Verlaine. Arthur Rimbaud lui offrit le manuscrit de son sonnet Voyelles, qui se trouve aujourd’hui au Musée Rimbaud. CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…

Daisy, by Francis Thompson

Jules-Cyrille Cavé - Girl with a Bouquet of Daisies (1897)
Jules-Cyrille Cavé – Girl with a Bouquet of Daisies (1897) – from Wikimedia Commons

After being rescued from vagrancy, the poet Francis Thompson was brought by Wilfrid and Alice Meynell to Our Lady of England Priory in Storrington, West Sussex, where he stayed in order to recover from his opium addiction. In his “Biographical Note” introducing Selected Poems of Francis Thompson, Wilfrid Meynell wrote: CONTINUE READING / CONTINUER LA LECTURE…