Desnos trauma
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"The Voice of Robert Desnos" by Robert Desnos.
1
Several conversations this week have circled questions of collaboration and the creative energy of breaking old forms and shaping new dances that can only be danced once—-and Robert Desnos swirled to mind for his friskiness, his willingness to admire a hat and then borrow it without asking.
In 1922, mouvement flou was in the Parisian air. After Rene Crevel recounted his experience at a Spiritualist seance, Andre Breton got excited and set up a similar event with his friends. This is how the pre-Surrealist Period of the Sleeping Fits began. Crevel and Desnos slipped intro trances easily and didn’t startle or break trance when answering questions posed by the group. With each day that past, their trance-length increased. Desnos even had the ability to write while asleep.
Both men started losing weight. Although he had never met Marcel Ducamp, Desnos believed that Rrose Selavy, Duchamp’s female alter ego, had taken possession of his body. Apparently, trance-sleep was not restorative because both men grew increasingly
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Robert Desnos, “The Night Watchman of Pont-au-Change”
Listen to us in your turn, sailors, pilots, soldiers.
We wish you good morning.
We do not speak to you of our suffering but of our hope,
On the threshold of a new day we say good morning,
To you who are near also to you
Who will receive our morning prayer
At the moment when twilight, in straw boots, enters your houses.
And good morning just the same and good morning for tomorrow
And good morning of good heart and all our kin
Good morning, good morning, the sun will rise over Paris
Even if hidden by clouds it will still be there
Good morning, good morning, with all of my heart bonjour.
– Robert Desnos, from “The Night Watchman of the Pont-au-Change,” translated by Carolyn Forché
Robert Desnos died in the concentration camp of Theresienstadt after having been captured as a member of the French resistance.
In his life before the Nazis took over what became known as Vichy France, he was a central ‘member’ of the surrealist group in Paris, and then of the Dada group. The
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Robert Desnos
French writer
Robert Desnos (French:[ʁɔbɛʁdɛsnos]; 4 July 1900 – 8 June 1945) was a French poet who played a key role in the Surrealist movement.
Early life
Robert Desnos was born in Paris on 4 July 1900, the son of a licensed dealer in game and poultry at the Halles market. Desnos attended commercial college, and started work as a clerk. He also worked as an amanuensis for journalist Jean de Bonnefon.[1] After that he worked as a literary columnist for the newspaper Paris-Soir.
Career
The first poems by Desnos to appear in print were published in 1917 in La Tribune des Jeunes (Platform for Youth) and in 1919 in the avant-garde review Le Trait d'union (Hyphen), and also the same year in the Dadaist magazine Littérature. In 1922 he published his first book, a collection of surrealistic aphorisms, with the title Rrose Sélavy (the name adopted as an "alternative persona" by the avant-garde French artist Marcel Duchamp; a pun on "Eros, c'est la vie").
In 1919 he met the poet Benjamin Péret, who introduced him to t
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