New addition: Letter by Paul Fort

Paul Fort, Symbolist Poet, publisher & theatre manager. Letter to unidentified correspondent. Nov. 25, 1924.

The dandyist writer Paul Fort was a key figure in the French avant-garde for over fifty years, and served as an important link between the Symbolist generation and that of the young Cubist and proto-Dada writers. For instance, he regularly played billiards with Apollinaire and Jarry, and in fact the commotion of a bar fight started by Jarry and involving a pistol with a blank cartridge had precipitated Fort's wife into early labour. At only 17 years old, Fort had founded the first independent Symbolist theatre company, known as the Théâtre d'Art. He left the group two years later, when it became the Théâtre de l'Oeuvre and went on to produce Jarry's Ubu Roi. He later edited the Symbolist journal Vers et Prose, and published many volumes of verse. He would become among the first of his generation to encourage and mentor the younger poets of the Paris Dada group, later the founders of Surrealism. His daughter married to the Futurist painter Gino Severini.

Then as now, neither quality nor respect within underground culture equate with financial security, and Fort's activity (in large part because it was so focused on creating venues for other peoples' work) left him in or near poverty throughout his life, while failing to garner a wide enough audience. among the next generation to sustain his old age. Like many avant-gardists, he spent most of his life refusing to seek plaudits or financial handouts from the establishment in the form of prizes or grants, but here he gives in to necessity:


"Paris, 34 rue Gay. Lussoc.                           Le 25 Nov. 1924.
                             [illegible in pencil, in another hand: likely the addressee's name]

          Mon bien cher ami,
     L'époque est dure aux bons citoyens.
     Me voilà, fort dénué comme vous le savez, pasant [sic] ma candidature au Prix Lasserre.
     J'ai "composé" deux sortes d'oeuvres: un grand nombre, poétiques, et un grand nombre d'enfants.
     Les unes ne font pas [vuire?] les autres.
     Or je ne me suis pas voué dans la vie rien qu'au soir de moi. même – dit-on... littérature français fut, quelquefois, n'être pas mécontente de mes efforts pour établir dans les esprits plusieurs génération[s] de haut[s] écrivains: le Thèatre d'Art qui devint l'Oeuvre, mes [confèrences] à l'Etranger, Vers et Prose en font foi. Tout cela – hors en de trop rares circonstances mes causeries aux pays étranges – oublia de m'enrichir, tout cela m'à laissé dignement pauvre et là ou je suis, c'est à dire bien bas.
     Je vous prie affectueusement, mon cher ami, de me faire l'honneur d'y songer demain.
     Croyes à ma fidèle gratitude. Croyez. moi votre admirateur le plus fervent et votre dévoué poète et amis
                    Paul Fort.

     La faim seule fait saillir le loup du bois (et des louveteaux). Vous me comprenez . . . Car depuis 35 [ans] de lettres je n'ai sollicité aucun prix et, naturellement, n'en ni désiré ni obtenu aucun.

In Translation:

"Paris, 24 Gay. Lussoc Avenue.                    The 25 Nov. 1924.

          My very dear friend,
     The epoch is rough on good citizens.
     Here's me, greatly deprived as you know, [passing along] my candidature for the Lassere Prize.
     I've "composed" two types of works: a great many, poetic, and a great many for children.
     The ones do not make the others [????].
     Yet in my whole life I've not dedicated myself to them anything but the evenings. only – they say . . . french literature was, once upon a time, not discontent with my efforts to establish several generations of lofty writers in thought: the Theatre of Art which becomes the Oeuvre, my [conventions] for the Stranger, Verse and Prose [in fount of faith.] All of this – except in too rare instances my talks in foreign countries – forgot to enrich me, all of this has left me honourably poor and that's where I'm at, that is to say, very down and out.
      I beg you affectionately, my dear friend, to do me the honour of reflecting on this tomorrow.
     Be assured of my faithful gratitude. Be assured. me your most fervent admirer and your devoted poet and friend
                    Paul Fort.

      Hunger alone drives the wolf forth from the forest (and wolf-cubs). You understand what I'm driving at . . . In 35 years of writing I have never sought any prize and, naturally, neither wanted nor got any.