Cellulely

Many twenty-first century readers and appreciators of French author Paul Verlaine and his poetry will be surprised and delighted to first learn about the discovery in December 2004 of a "lost" manuscript by Paul Verlaine, Cellulairement, never published in any language before 2013. Cellulely is the first known English translation to come out, by Richard Robinson.

Cellulely is all the more striking and full of wonderment given the circumstances under which the poems in question were written (prison, religious conversion), and the notorious events leading up to those circumstances (Rimbaud, fog of absinthe, pistol). Famous events, and turning points, in the life of the poet.

Readers of Cellulely will also be interested to know that these are some of the same poems that are referred to on several occasions in Verlaine's autobiographical work, My Prisons, also available in English translation by Sunny Lou Publishing.

Lady mouse scampers,

Black in the grey of evening,

Lady mouse scampers

Grey in the black of night.

One sounds the bell,

Sleep, good prisoners!

One sounds the bell:

You must go to sleep.