Poetry News

Surreal Love at City Lights

Originally Published: February 13, 2013

How sweet and surreal love can be, and the good folks at the City Lights blog are driving the point home with a post that features two love poems by two of our favorite surrealists, Paul Éluard and Joyce Mansour. Of course no surrealist post would be complete without Breton having a say:

Breton, father of the surrealist movement, saw that the basic problem of making a living could interfere with love as well as poetry. Love, for the French poet, had to be transformed into a powerful emotion that put the lover in touch with the marvelous.

“I have wanted to show above all what precautions and what ruses desire takes, in search of its object and evading it.” – Andre Breton

Surf over to check out the poems. And if you're craving more classic surrealist love poetry, you may want to take a gander at the October 1945 issue of Poetry, featuring work by Louis Aragon, Paul Éluard, and Henri Michaux. At this hour we're digging on "Elsa's Eyes" by Louis Aragon.