Pierre Reverdy

Pierre Reverdy
Pierre Reverdy (by Modigliani, 1915)
Born	September 13, 1889 Narbonne, France
Died	June 17, 1960(1960-06-17) (aged 71) Solesmes, France
Occupation	Poet, critic
Nationality	French
Period	1910–1960
Literary movement	Surrealism

Pierre Reverdy (French: [ʁəvɛʁdi]; September 13, 1889 – June 17, 1960) was a French poet whose works were inspired by and subsequently proceeded to influence the provocative art movements of the day, Surrealism, Dadaism and Cubism. The loneliness and spiritual apprehension that ran through his poetry appealed to the Surrealist credo. He, though, remained independent of the prevailing “isms,” searching for something beyond their definitions. His writing matured into a mystical mission seeking, as he wrote: “the sublime simplicity of reality."

The son of a winegrower, Reverdy was born in Occitanie (southern France), in the region of Narbonne, and grew up near the Montagne Noire. The Reverdy ancestors were stonemasons and sculptors associated with work commissioned for churches. The extant facts of his childhood and early years are few and obscured. Some source material indicates that at the time of Reverdy’s birth, his mother was a married woman whose husband was at the time living in Argentina. Further, it is believed that Reverdy’s father and mother were not able to marry each other until 1897. His father schooled him at home, teaching him to read and write.

Reverdy arrived in Paris in October 1910, devoting his early years there to his writing. It was in Paris, at the artistic enclave centered around the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre that he met Guillaume Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Louis Aragon, André Breton, Philippe Soupault and Tristan Tzara. All would come to admire and champion Reverdy’s poetry. Reverdy published a small volume of poetry in 1915. A second compilation of his work brought out in 1924, Les épaves du ciel, brought him greater recognition. These poems, short, fragmentary, the words an evocation of sharp visuals; the volume was the literary equivalent of the Plastic arts as practiced by Cubist painters and sculptors. In the first Surrealist Manifesto, André Breton hailed Reverdy as "the greatest poet of the time." Louis Aragon said that for Breton, Soupault, Éluard and himself, Reverdy was "our immediate elder, the exemplary poet." In 1917, together with Max Jacob, Vicente Huidobro and Guillaume Apollinaire, Reverdy founded the influential journal Nord-Sud ("North-South") which contained many Dadaist and Surrealist contributions. Sixteen issues of Nord-Sud were published, from March 15, 1917 through October 15, 1918. It is believed Reverdy took his inspiration for the title of his periodical from the subway line, the Paris Métro, which in 1910 instituted a route running from Montmartre to Montparnasse; it was Reverdy's intention to unite the vitality of these two distinctive city districts.