The Youngest Poetess in the World • Michèle Chédid • The Lebanese Child!

It often happens that children possess a freshness more abundant — and at times deeper — than grown-ups...

There lives in Paris today a lady of Lebanese origin, a woman of letters and a poetess: Madame Andrée Chedid. She has written in the French-language magazines that used to appear in Beirut and in the French magazines of Paris; she has also published a booklet in English under a pen name, and a volume of her French verse was printed for her in Paris, besides the two collections that had appeared earlier. Last month a book of hers came out in French, which she called "The Delivered Slumber," a novel published in Paris.

As for the poetic spirit and the refined taste, they have shown themselves not only in Madame Andrée Chedid's output in verse and prose: this heavenly gift has appeared in the most magnificent poem she ever made, woven of her blood and of her self, fashioned of her flesh and of her spirit — namely her daughter Michèle, who had no sooner begun to speak than the words came from her astonishing, carrying meaning upon meaning!! Michèle is considered the youngest poetess — or poet — in the world.

She knew neither writing nor reading when her mother gathered together her first work, called "The Little Book of Michèle Chédid" (Le Petit Livre de Michèle Chédid); she was then no more than four years old. The artist Henri Monier illustrated these marvelous little poems, which are considered of the surrealist kind (Surreèlle) for the rare spontaneity and freshness in them. And Mr. Henri Monier, who accompanies these artless musings with beautiful drawings that seem inspired by all the laughter of childhood, swears upon his honor that his poetess has never in her life read anything of the surrealists' production!! The child Michèle now lives in a village on the outskirts of Paris with her parents, for she has not yet been fully emancipated!... The idea was her mother's: she collected all the short, comical phrases that Michèle managed to utter when her childish chatter began.

The nurses at the kindergarten Michèle attends marvel at this little girl's early ripeness, but her mother protests, saying:

"My daughter is no prodigy. She talks like all children. But—

Before we come to translating a few samples of Michèle Chédid's verses, we must mention that she is now seven years old. Here are some of her sayings — sayings whose surface is the chatter of childhood, and whose depths are the wisdom of maturity in the images of the little ones:

"The flower fell from the vase.
And broke her head.
And little girls will suffer someday.
Then die!"

Elsewhere she likens the ant to a lady turning the pages of the catechism book, and says: "And my papa remembers that." She also has:

"My papa and my mama
hold hands
... the pretty mill goes round!"

Michèle touches on most subjects, even marriage, when she says:

"Marriage...
a big doll asking herself:
what do I want to do?!"

And she analyzes the psychology of people, and of the little ones especially, without knowing she is doing so, when she says:

"I take a pail.
But I disobey: I put
butterflies in it."

★

"I know a mountain
that ran away from the garden
quickly... quickly...
and the cows began to low.."

This must be a picture of the sunset, for instance — when the shadow of the mountain, or the sight of it, began to vanish before her with the setting sun; at that hour the cattle come back from their pastures, and the child poetess interprets that as weeping.

"The loom is a man dressed in clothes
of red and black, and he lets blood...
The girl was all red
and all white, and the loom wipes her
and says to her:
You... you are not alone!..."

*

"A woman turns the mills
for seven years,
and on her face there was
foam,
so she kept scratching
all the time?"

*

And in a dialogue between her and her mother she says:

— Little Jesus, is he in heaven? — Of course he is.
— Then doesn't he see the back of his neck? — Of course not.
— And the wolf?... is he in the forest? — Yes...
— Doesn't he see the back of his neck either? — No...
— But Mama... there are so many things that don't see the backs of their necks!..."

Henri Monier is proud that Michèle's choice fell upon him, to adorn her marvelous little verses with fitting drawings, looking for all the world like scrawls or scribbles. And it lightens the soul a little, in this age of ours — the age of struggling childhood — to come at last upon a work that reflects an early ripeness and an innocent, honest feeling.