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T R A N S L A T O R ’ S   N O T E

      Cirque du Calder was written in 1946 by Jules Cuiff, an obscure French poet. He had the work privately printed the following year, after failing to interest Editions Gallimard or any other of the publishing houses that championed the Surrealists at mid-century. A Surrealist in tone and in practice, Cuiff nevertheless proved to be of little importance to the Movement, or indeed to twentieth-century French literature in general, despite the early embrace of André Breton, who had said of him in 1924: “He is one who astonishes us in his haberdashery as well as in his verse.”¹

According to several biographers of major Surrealist figures, Cuiff was noted for his dandified appearance and, especially, his neckties. These were hand-painted gifts from many of the most advanced painters then at work in Paris, who saw in Cuiff the opportunity to “exhibit seminal gestures and motives in an unprecedented way: that is, around Cuiff’s neck.”²

While the poet may have been decidedly minor, he was well liked and, in the words of de Chirico, “went everywhere.” Happily, for me, one of the places Cuiff went was to the flat on the rue de la Colonie, where, from 1926-1930, Alexander Calder presented his delightful “circus.” Cirque du Calder, as it was known, attracted the attention not only of the Surrealists, who claimed the young American expatriate for their own, but also other artists such as Jean Arp, Jean Cocteau, Fernand Léger, Juan Miró, Piet Mondrian, Man Ray, and Picasso. Calder constructed his tiny acrobats, clowns, circus animals, and the apparatus that made it all work, from wire, springs, cork, paper, pieces of tin—the detritus of late 1920’s French industrialism.

A melancholy man, Cuiff was barred entrance to Surrealism’s innermost circle, in orbit around Breton: Aragon, Artaud, Eluard, Péret, Reverdy, Tzara. Cuiff thought of himself as a “pygmy among Giants”; and while his contribution to twentieth-century poetry may have been negligible, his frequent presence at the private performances of Cirque du Calder

did prompt him to write one slim volume of pataphysical interest, which I was pleased to discover and to subsequently translate.

“Discover” may not be apt; although the feeling I continue to cherish, that of rescuing an admittedly small treasure from the pillaging of time, does elevate the present translation to a discovery, of sorts. In actuality, I received the original 1947 volume from a friend, who had chanced upon it in a Paris bookshop in 1997. She knew of my insatiable curiosity for Paris, as it was from the time of Gertrude Stein to the post-war years of the young Elsworth Kelly. She was right; I adored the little book; and my admiration for the universally forgotten Jules Cuiff continues.

I would like to acknowledge my debt to Gordon Lish, whose conviction that such “interventions” as this are valuable, and to Faruk Ulay, whose artistry and ardor illuminate every page of this translation. Indeed, without Faruk’s seemingly infallible sense of fitness in typography and design, Cirque du Calder could not have been possible, dependent as it is on those two extra-literary qualities. Thanks go also to my wife, Helen, for her patience and good humor, and to the poet Kathryn Rantala for her songs.

The footnotes to the text appear in the original French edition. They are odd in what is intended to be a poetic work, and underscore the eccentricity of the author. We have decided to retain them in the interest of fidelity to the original text and for the insight they occasionally provide into Cuiff’s better-known contemporaries.

—N O R M A N   L O C K

   Spring 2001

   Paris, France

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¹ La Révolution Surréaliste, Issue 5, October 1924.

² The Fabulous Inventor: The Life and Work of Philippe Soupault. Claude Michel. Editions Gallimard. 1951.