The Prose of the Trans-Siberian and of Little Jeanne of France
The long line these short ones snap back from — and Sonia Delaunay, met again at her colors.
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Nineteen Elastic Poems
Poems that stretch to fit the century — nineteen dispatches from the studios of Chagall, Léger, and Delaunay, and the last verse before the novels.
- 1919
About Blaise Cendrars
The story, briefly
Spoiler-freeDix-neuf poèmes élastiques (1919) gathers the poems Cendrars wrote between 1913 and the end of the war — the elastic of the title being the form itself, which stretches and snaps back to whatever the modern day hands it: a painter's studio, a newspaper column, an advertisement, a street overheard entire. Several are portraits of the friends whose canvases surrounded him — Chagall, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay — making the book a group photograph of the avant-garde taken in words. It is also a farewell: after these, he largely put down verse and picked up the novel. (Poems — nothing here to spoil.)
The story, in more detail
The elasticity was a working method. Where the great early poems ran on one long line to one long destination, these are short, sprung, and opportunistic — built from whatever the city was saying: signage, small ads, café talk, the studio's turpentine, catalog copy. It is the same simultaneist appetite the Transsibérien had shown, now cut into nineteen quick takes, and it made Cendrars one of the poets who taught modern French verse to collage.
The company is half the book. Several poems are studio portraits — Chagall at work, Léger's machine forms, the Delaunays' color discs — written by the poet who had already made a two-meter artwork with Sonia Delaunay and who lived among painters as an equal. Au Sans Pareil published the collection in 1919, and it stands at the hinge of the career: with the war behind him, the missing arm learned, and Sutter and Moravagine waiting a few years ahead, this was the poetry the novelist walked away from — still, in Ron Padgett's English, one of the most quotable stretches on the shelf.
What's inside
Nineteen short poems, six years wide: portraits of painters at work, a poem built from a newspaper, telegraphic city snapshots, the war glimpsed sideways, and the poet's own restlessness turning over between departures. No sequence to obey — the collection is designed to be opened anywhere.
An hour, or a lifetime of re-openings; Ron Padgett's Complete Poems is the standard English home.
Why we recommend it
Modernism in nineteen takes
The whole collage impulse of the century, demonstrated at pocket size and full speed.
The painters, from inside
Studio portraits by a poet who was there — the era's art history written in the present tense.
The hinge of a career
Read it knowing the novels are next, and the collection plays as a great writer changing instruments.
What this book explores
Timeline
1913–1918
Between the Transsibérien and the end of the war, Cendrars writes the short, sprung poems of the collection — several of them studio portraits of Chagall, Léger, and the Delaunays.
1919
Au Sans Pareil publishes Dix-neuf poèmes élastiques; after it Cendrars largely puts down verse for the novel, with Gold and Moravagine a few years ahead.
1992
Ron Padgett's Complete Poems, from the University of California Press, gives the collection its standard English home.
Book editions
Paperback
- Paperback
- Au Sans Pareil
- 1919
Paperback
- Paperback
- University of California Press
- 1992
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Nineteen Elastic Poems: frequently asked questions
Who wrote Nineteen Elastic Poems?
Blaise Cendrars. Dix-neuf poèmes élastiques was published in Paris in 1919.
What does the title mean?
The "elastic" is the form itself, which stretches and snaps back to whatever the modern day hands it — a painter's studio, a newspaper column, an advertisement, a street overheard entire.
Which artists appear in the poems?
Several are studio portraits of the friends whose canvases surrounded Cendrars — Chagall, Fernand Léger, and Robert Delaunay — making the book a group photograph of the avant-garde in words.
Why is it a turning point?
It is a farewell to verse: after these poems Cendrars largely put down poetry and picked up the novel, with Gold and Moravagine a few years ahead.
Where can English readers find it?
In Ron Padgett's Complete Poems, the standard English home for Cendrars's verse.