Poetry
The Big Game
Le Grand Jeu
Benjamin Péret · 1928
Synopsis
The collection brings together brief, disconcerting poems, in which images follow one another as in a dream and bring together realities that nothing seemed to link. Words are left free, according to a conception of poetry as verbal play, and humour and joy prevail over seriousness. These pages have been seen as one of the purest examples of Surrealist poetry.
Context
The collection appeared from Gallimard in April 1928, with a photographic portrait of the author as frontispiece. The same month, the author married the Brazilian singer Elsie Houston, with whom he left for Brazil the following year. The book has remained available in France since its publication, but its first complete English translation appeared only in 2011, in a bilingual edition, from Black Widow Press.
Who it is for
Short poems, to be read separately and aloud, without trying to explain them: the images matter more than the meaning.
Prizes and reception
Reissued in 1969 in Gallimard's Poésie collection; translated into English by Marilyn Kallet under the title The Big Game.
Sources for this page 8
The pages consulted to check this page.