Four Partings – by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, Léocadie Penquer, Philothée O’Neddy, & Misha Persall

     Love and angst are timeless. These four pieces by underground poets explore the theme of bitter break-ups over the course of a century.

     Marceline Desbordes-Valmore was an important force in French Romanticism, and the most important female poet of her generation. Her influence on Penquer’s work is clear in the form of the latter’s poem here, as well as its epigraph from Desbordes-Valmore. O’Neddy was also fans of hers, as was Alfred Jarry.

     Léocadie Penquer grew up in the Romanticist community in Brest, France, performing her work at salons but only publishing a few poems, in the avant-garde Parnasse Contemporain anthology. She was involved in Liberal politics in Brest along her husband, who was the mayor for a time, and she  helped to found the Fine Museum of Fine Art museum.

     Philothée O’Neddy was an active force in the underground Romanticist scene in Paris, a co-founder of the seminal Bouzingo group, and was cited as an influence by the Decadents, Dadas & Surrealists. He never married after the end of the affair mourned in this poem. His chapbook The Phalanxes of Babel is available on mOnocle-Lash.

     Misha Persall published two books of poetry, one in Yiddish and one in English; little more is known of him. This piece was printed in English, in a volume (residing in the Revenant Archive) typeset, printed, and bound by hand at the Maverick Artists’ Colony in New York; his poem here reproduces his typographical choices as closely as possible.

     Edited & translated (except Persall) by Olchar Lindsann.