Congratulations to Jacqueline Gojard - The Salmon-Apollinaire Letters Have Arrived!

   Portrait of Andre Salmon by Léon Gottlieb, 1908

 

        Apollinaire in Picasso's Studio, 1910       

Preface, edited and annotated by Jacqueline Gojard

Nous nous sommes rencontrés dans un caveau maudit

Au temps de notre jeunesse

Fumant tous deux et mal vêtus attendant l'aube

Épris, épris des mêmes paroles dont il faudra changer le sens

We met in a dirty dive

During the days of our youth,

Both smoking and poorly dressed, awaiting the dawn,

In love, yes in love with the same words whose meaning will have to be changed.

"Poem Read at André Salmon's Wedding" (July 13, 1909)

-- Guillaume Apollinaire

The short life of Apollinaire (1880-1918) is well known, from the child in a sailor suit to the poet in his uniform, crowned with a bandaged head. The same cannot be said of André Salmon (1881-1969), who survived his companion by more than fifty years. United by "a friendship that cannot end," these two poets never stopped seeing and writing to each other. Their correspondence, gathered here for the first time, brings to life an entire creative era, populated by their friends Maurice Cremnitz, René Dalize, André Derain, Max Jacob, Marie Laurencin, Jean Mollet, Pablo Picasso, Alfred Jarry, Jean Cocteau, etc. Conceived as a puzzle with its solution, this book offers two sets of texts classified in chronological order: a series of 90 letters and documents, written from their meeting until the death of Apollinaire, makes it possible to follow the avatars of a companionship “founded in poetry” (1903-1909), erratic (1909-1914), and finally fraternal (1914-1918). Then an “anthology” of 28 essays and poems, written by Salmon between 1918 and 1959, maintain a lively dialogue with his lost comrade. The writer, endlessly solicited after the death of his friend, never missed an opportunity to give a charming image of this "extraordinarily inspired, robust man" who was the very embodiment of his own youth. And the very opposite. The difference between the founder of the Aesop's Feast, La Revue immoraliste and Les Soirées de Paris; the author of Alcools and Calligrammes; the storyteller of L'Hérésiarch & Cie and of the Assassinated Poet; and the defender of The Cubist Painters; and the poet/critic/memoirist André Salmon evaporates when the two “correspond.” Just one example: Salmon, short of cash, wanted to get married on July 13, 1909 because there would be fireworks, lights, and balls in honor of their wedding. As a witness for the groom, Apollinaire gifted his friend with a poem, which reinforced the illusion of a shared public celebration, while testifying to their beautiful complicity: "On a pavoisé Paris parce que mon ami André Salmon s’y marie . . ." "All Paris is decked out for my friend André Salmon marries here today." Guillaume Apollinaire & André Salmon: Correspondence (1903-1918) and Anthology (1918-1959) Edition Claire Paulhan “Offprint” collection 124 color photos and facsimiles, first edition; four-color offset printing, 500 copies, on Olin Regular Creme 90 gr paper. and under Fedrigoni Materica Acqua 250 gr. Release: April 18, 2022 12x17cm. 488 p. Isbn: 978-2-912222-73-2. Retail price: 39 euros   or order and pay by check