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The Steiny Road Poet has signed on for the fourth time to Al Filreis’ Modern & Contemporary American Poetry massive open online course
(the ModPo MOOC) from Coursera. As a ModPo community teaching assistant, Steiny is again engaging in the study of Gertrude Stein’s long love poem Tender Buttons.
The 2015 study of Tender Buttons takes place inside the discussion forum of ModPo where any of the thousands of ModPo students are free to participate or lurk. Steiny resumes work on Section 2 Food in early October when University of Pennsylvania professor Filreis opens the study to Gertrude Stein.
THE GLUE OF GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE
One aspect of Steiny’s study this year will be to look for signs of how the outside world influenced what Gertrude Stein wrote. This
includes what affect the poet Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918) may have had on her. Apollinaire met Pablo Picasso in 1905 and quickly became part of Picasso’s circle of
artist friends. From what Stein wrote about Apollinaire in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, it was apparent Stein greatly cared about and respected the intelligence
of this man.
“Salmon [French poet André Salmon was also part of Picasso’s circle] and Guillaume Apollinaire both lived in Montmartre in these
days. Salmon was very lithe and alive but Gertrude Stein never found him particularly interesting. She liked him. Guillaume Apollinaire on the contrary was very wonderful.
“… Guillaume was extraordinarily brilliant and no matter what subject was started, if he knew anything about it or not, he quickly
saw the whole meaning of the thing and elaborated it by his wit and fancy carrying it further than anybody knowing anything about it could have done, and oddly enough generally
correctly.
“…The last time we saw him was after he had come back to Paris from the war. He had been badly wounded in the head and had had a
piece of his skull removed. He looked very wonderful with his bleu horizon and his bandaged head. He lunched with us and we all talked a long time together. He was tired and his
heavy head nodded. He was very serious almost solemn. We went away shortly after, we were working with the American Fund for French Wounded, and never saw him again.
“…The death of Guillaume Apollinaire at this time made a very serious difference to all his friends apart from their sorrow at his
death. It was the moment just after the war when many things had changed and people naturally fell apart. Guillaume would
have been a bond of union, he always had a quality of keeping people together, and now that he was gone everybody ceased to be friends.”
EYE AND EAR LESSONS
Stein wrote Tender Buttons beginning in 1912 and by spring of 1914, achieved publication—her first invited book as well as her
first poetry collection. In 1913, she wrote this portrait of Apollinaire:
Give known or pin ware.
Fancy teethe, gas strips.
Elbow elect, sour stout pore, pore caesar, pour state at.
Leave eye lessons I. Leave I. Lessons. I. Leave I lessons, I.
In A Stein Reader, editor Ulla Dydo comments that this portrait “becomes a bilingual eye lesson that is also an ear lesson in new
reading.” Dydo says that the first line of the portrait sounds like the poet’s pen name Give known (Guillaume) or pin ware
(Apollinaire). Dydo tells us the poet’s full name was Wilhelm Apollinaris Albertus de Kostrowitzky and that he was “a Pole,
not a Frenchman” at the time of Stein’s portrait.
STEIN’S PUNCTUATION RIOT
What particularly interests Steiny is that this 31-word portrait has 13 items of punctuation, including five commas. In her 1934
essay "Poetry and Grammar," Stein says, “a comma is a poor period that it lets you stop and take a breath.” In Tender Buttons, Stein employs many commas and periods such that Steiny
believes Gertrude Stein was making some kind of statement about punctuation. The excess is particularly apparent in the
way she punctuates the titles of her subpoems. For example, Section 1 Objects opens with “A Carafe, That Is A Blind Glass.”. Note that a period ends every Tender Buttons subpoem title.
In 1913, Apollinaire enjoyed publication of Alcools, his first major book of poetry. The poems are words only, without
punctuation, and this lack shocked his readership. “Zone,” the opening poem of Alcools, is touted as cubist in style, possibly
like the Orphic Cubist paintings of Robert Delaunay. Stein’s Tender Buttons, said to be influenced by the cubism of Picasso, therefore begs comparison. While Alcools, translating as Spirits
(mostly alcoholic spirits), reflects on Apollinaire’s unsuccessful love relationships, Tender Buttons is Stein’s often deliriously
drunk invocation of love for her secret wife Alice Toklas. Therefore, Stein’s heavy use of commas may be the way Stein
brought visceral action to these poems. Steiny likes to say that the 87 words of “A Long Dress.” from Section 1 Objects with its
eight commas results in heavy breathing, like the breathing one might experience in having sexual intercourse.
A LONG DRESS.
What is the current that makes machinery, that makes it crackle, what is the current that presents a long line and a necessary
waist. What is this current.
What is the wind, what is it.
Where is the serene length, it is there and a dark place is not a dark place, only a white and red are black, only a yellow and
green are blue, a pink is scarlet, a bow is every color. A line distinguishes it. A line just distinguishes it.
Apollinaire was also concerned about bringing action to his poem, that action that Stein called the present moment. However, he achieved this in Alcools with text unimpeded by
punctuation. Take for example, the fluidity of this well know poem:
LE PONT MIRABEAU
by Guillaume Apollinaire
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Et nos amours
Faut-il qu’il m’en souvienne
La joie venait toujours après la peine
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante
L’amour s’en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l’Espérance est violente
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
Sous le pont Mirabeau coule la Seine
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
PONT MIRABEAU
translated by Richard Wilbur
Under the Mirabeau Bridge there flows the Seine
Must I recall
Our loves recall how then
After each sorrow joy came back again
Let night come on bells end the day
The days go by me still I stay
Hands joined and face to face let's stay just so
While underneath
The bridge of our arms shall go
Weary of endless looks the river's flow
Let night come on bells end the day
The days go by me still I stay
All love goes by as water to the sea
All love goes by
How slow life seems to me
How violent the hope of love can be
Let night come on bells end the day
The days go by me still I stay
The days the weeks pass by beyond our ken
Neither time past
Nor love comes back again
Under the Mirabeau Bridge there flows the Seine
Let night come on bells end the day
The days go by me still I stay
Both Stein and Apollinaire employ repetition to create circularity. The beginning and the end meet such that time turns on itself,
creating a fleeting sensation that time has stopped in the present moment. For Stein and Apollinaire, circularity is
involved with cubism (seeing all sides at once) and the fourth dimension, which has its irrational aspect since the human eye cannot see it.
Apollinaire, as an art critic, spent time analyzing the new style of painting (cubism) developed by Pablo Picasso and Georges
Braque. Apollinaire said that Picasso and Braque were “moving toward an entirely new art which will stand, with respect to
painting as envisaged theretofore as music stands to literature. It will be pure painting as music is pure literature.” (Marilyn Stokstad. Art History. NY: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 2002. Page
1077) Apollinaire also coined the phrase Orphic Cubism when he wrote critical commentary on Robert Delaunay’s work.
STEALING FROM THE NURSERY
While Stein and Apollinaire were capable of remarkable intellectual agility, they both had a tremendous sense of play
that often drew on children’s literature. Take a look at Apollinaire’s “La blanche neige” from Alcools.
LA BLANCHE NEIGE
by Guillaume Apollinaire
Les anges les anges dans le ciel
L'un est vêtu en officier
L'un est vêtu en cuisinier
Et les autres chantent
Bel officier couleur du ciel
Le doux printemps longtemps après Noël
Te médaillera d'un beau soleil
D'un beau soleil
Le cuisinier plume les oies
Ah! tombe neige
Tombe et que n'ai-je
Ma bien-aimée entre mes bras
THE WHITE SNOW
Translated by A. S. Kline
The angels the angels in the sky
One’s dressed as an officer
One’s dressed as a chef today
And the others sing
Fine sky-coloured officer
Sweet Spring when Christmas is long gone
Will deck you with a lovely sun
A lovely sun
The chef plucks geese
Ah! Snowfalls hiss
Fall and how I miss
My beloved in my arms
In French, the fairy tale of Snow White is Blanche-Neige. So the reader, like Steiny, may have misread Apollinaire’s title “La
blanche neige.” Yet the absurd characters of this poems—angels dressed as an officer and a chef who at Christmas time comes to
decorate you with a medal of sun and cook you a special dinner seem, equally with Snow White, characters out of a child’s story
except snow falls and the speaker of this poem is reminded that his beloved is not held close. Moreover, Apollinaire links that
lack—the missing beloved—to the snow by way of a clever rhyme: neige/que n’ai-je.
In Tender Buttons, Stein delivers the punch of her nursery rhymes with abandon. Take for example, “A Dog.”:
A DOG.
A little monkey goes like a donkey that means to say that means to say that more sighs last goes. Leave with it. A little monkey
goes like a donkey.
With this Steinian ditty, Steiny thinks we may have entered into a Shakespearean forest (think A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
where men or women are turned (literally or figuratively) into asses because they fall too hard in love.
OBERON
Having once this juice,
I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep
And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.
The next thing then she waking looks upon—
Be it on lion, bear, or wolf, or bull,
On meddling monkey or on busy ape—
She shall pursue it with the soul of love.
And ere I take this charm from of her sight—
As I can take it with another herb—
I’ll make her render up her page to me.
But who comes here? I am invisible.
And I will overhear their conference.
So Oberon, King of the Fairies, enchants Titania to make a fool of her as well as turn the mortal man Bottom into an ass.
BOTTOM
Nothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery Cobweb
to scratch. I must to the barber's, monsieur; for
methinks I am marvellous hairy about the face; and I
am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me,
I must scratch.]
WAS STEIN ISOLATED OR IN CAHOOTS?
Apollinaire was a poet who was born in Rome of a single mother whose background was Polish. His father was most likely an
Italian military officer. His mother moved him around in Europe and by the age of 18, he settled in Paris. Gertrude Stein was born
outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States and as young child she and her family lived in Austria and Paris until
they were settled finally in Oakland, California. She was given lessons along with her siblings in French and German.
What hanging out with the ModPo community, a very large international group, makes Steiny realize is that Gertrude Stein
was not writing in a vacuum. She was communicating with artists like Guillaume Apollinaire and Pablo Picasso. If Tender Buttons seems sui generis, it may be because we Americans have
not studied literature in other languages.
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