Theme: Paris

I don't have the chance to often recommend a McSweeney's book. Face it, the ubiquitous McSweeney's publications that infiltrate all aspects of publishing seem to be a bit shy when it comes to literature in translation. And God forbid, if this blasphemer offends a couple of twenty-something hipsters who still have the unctuous dew of MFA programs glistening on their talented fingertips, but I happen to think that as bad as McSweeney's can be is as good as they can be. Yes, it's true, there was literature pre-McSweeney's. Even more amazing is that McSweeney's had found some of it! What does this have to do with Paris , you ask? Well, if they didn't go and publish a sweet and petite bilingual collection of prose poems by the little known Paul Poissel, a French poet and writer from the turn of the century.

The Facts of Winter is an odd and engaging book, beautifully designed, that chronicles the dreams of people in Paris during the winter of 1881. Paul Poissel struggled with illness and poverty, but managed to write a nostalgic and wistful book filled with prose poems that encompass everything from humor to horror, laced with the appropriate amount of irony. We see it all in one of my favorites in the collection, entitled "A Pair of Mascots":

Mlle Montbazon, an actress at the Ambiguous Theater, dreams on January 9 that she has to perform The Mascot with her father who suffers from mental illness. She goes to asylum where he's locked up and practices the play with him. He learns his role easily, and Mlle Montbazon wonders whether he is perhaps recovering from his malady. ON the night of the first performance, however, her father appears in the costume of Clara, the ingenue--the costume Mlle Montbazon herself is wearing. Horrified, she cannot move; she becomes the audience for the new play now unfolding before her. Her father knows Clara's part well; he says with unfeigned emotion words that Mlle Montbazon herself had trouble taking seriously. No one on stage or in the audience see,s to mind the presence of two leading ladies, no one but Mlle Montbazon, who wonders what part she should play, and whether it's her turn to go mad.

What I found so fascinating about Poissel's work is his ability to convey so much of the dreamer through these short poems. Few are more than a page long, but we feel their fears, insecurity and hopes seep through the strange situations and surreal landscapes that dreams illicit. And, of course, we identify with these hopes and desires because they are basic, primal even. Over one hundred years later, we relate to this collection of prose poems written as dreams but it allows Poissel to touch the depths of our minds with very little detail, minimal setup

. I wanted to start writing down my dreams again, not because I think that they are poetry, but because they do reveal emotions we have within ourselves that we don't know are there or don't want to know are there. Dreams create worlds of our own that are constructed of our own emotional materials and they offer up insight into ourselves. Poissel knew what dreams were made of and gave it to us in poetry. And these facts of winter warmed me up on a chilly Los Angeles day.

The Facts of Winter(not available from McSweeney's website)
by Paul Poissel
Translated by Paul La Farge
Drawings by Kakyoung Lee
McSweeney's
Harcover
ISBN: 1932416161
18.00