About Léon-Paul Fargue
Léon-Paul Fargue (1876-1947) was a French poet who most often expressed himself in free verse, or even in prose, in a language full of tenderness and sadness, on simple subjects, sometimes comical. He was in contact with the main writers and artists of his time, although most of his life was that of a lonely and marginalized man. As lazy and self-assured in appearance as he was scrupulous in reality, this Pedestrian of Paris (the title of one of his books, published in 1939) combined sensitivity and humor: a 'half-heartedly' poet, rather than of great evasions and excessive ambitions, he preferred the scenery of Paris, the small facts of everyday life, which under his pen would acquire the colors of the dream and that, harmoniously, served to account for the delicacy of his heart: For the Music (1914), Familiar suite (1930), etc.He was a member of the Apaches circle (1902-1914) and became friends with Maurice Ravel, who dedicated him the first movement, Noctuelles, from his piece Miroirs (1904-1905) and later set his poem Rêves (1927) to music. In 1924, he founded the journal Commerce with Larbaud and Paul Valéry. After publishing a few poems in 1894, he published Tancrède in 1895 where he wrote: 'There were many times a young man so handsome that women expressly wanted him to write.', then Poèmes in 1912, and For the Music in 1914.
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