The Dice Cup

In the first years of the 20th century, friends Max Jacob, Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, with associated artists and writers including Georges Braque, Jean Cocteau, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, Gertrude Stein, Pierre Reverdy and Alfred Jarry, gathered in a ramshackle house in Paris. From its improvised studios and stages emerged the early expressions of Modernism: Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, incorporation of collage in painting and vernacular in poetry. Jacob's...
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In the first years of the 20th century, friends Max Jacob, Pablo Picasso and Guillaume Apollinaire, with associated artists and writers including Georges Braque, Jean Cocteau, Amedeo Modigliani, Henri Matisse, Gertrude Stein, Pierre Reverdy and Alfred Jarry, gathered in a ramshackle house in Paris. From its improvised studios and stages emerged the early expressions of Modernism: Cubism, Dada, Surrealism, incorporation of collage in painting and vernacular in poetry. Jacob's masterwork, The Dice Cup (Le Cornet à Dés), has never before been available in a full English edition. This completely new translation includes the Preface of 1916, with Jacob's critique of Rimbaud, Baudelaire and Mallarme, and his strictures and inspirations for the true prose poem: "The author who has situated his work can use all the enchantments: language, rhythm, musicality and spirit." "I am convinced that artistic emotion ceases where analysis and thought intersect: something else provokes thought and gives the feeling of beauty." "A work of art is a force that attracts, that absorbs the available forces of the one who comes close to it." "The poem is a constructed object... the prose poem is a jewel." from The Dice Cup: THE PRESS: I entered timidly: there was an ostrich that was losing its feathers and, on a white stucco pedestal, a bronze bird whose plumage was represented by a series of engraved shells. It was Mr. Abel Hermant or someone like Mr. Abel Hermant who appeared, as soon as the hallway door opened: "Ah! young man!" said he, "you come for the hundred sous!" I learned later that a hundred sous were given to everybody who came there. At the mention of a hundred sous, the ostrich dropped a feather and the bronze bird flew away. Anyway, the vestibule was deserted and dusty, pins were kept in iron boxes painted with the portraits of great men, Cuvier, Buffon, etc... "Ah! Young man," repeated Mr. Abel Hermant or someone of the same ilk, "you come for the hundred sous!" And the birds re-commenced their motions. "No, sir! It's free! It's a free delivery!" My future spiritual guide did not listen any further: "free delivery" had edified him, he turned his back on me. The ostrich put on his policeman's hat and looked at me with worried curiosity. The bronze bird was even more bronze.