ABSTRACT
One of the most engaging expressions of French intimism occurs in the "stroll", a meditative poetic rambling through the countryside and especially Paris. As the lieu of such excursions, it is hard to think of a metropolis more tailor-made for poetry than the French capital. A related characteristic of French poetry is the poet's relationship to "things". Because of the natural empiricism of most English-language poets, it is hard to imagine an exact equivalent of Francis Ponge, the French "thing-poet" par excellence. An influential presage of the contemporary poet's concern with place and movement is announced by Rimbaud. Stemming directly from these internal characteristics of the language, and similar in its relative "foreignness" for us, is the aphorism, another French specialty that likewise must be comprehended for a full savoring of the country's poetry.
