THOUGHTS OF MANET FINISHING A CAFÉ PAINTING:

HOW THIS POEM WAS WRITTEN

©2010 All Rights Reserved D. L. Guerra

The Santa Barbara Museum of Art invited poetry in preparation for an

Atelier event focused on its exhibit Delacroix to Monet: Masterpieces of
19th-Century Painting from the Walters Art Museum. The “prompt” was
Edouard Manet’s 1878 painting, In the Café (from Baltimore’s Walters Art
Museum). Poem length was limited to 10 lines.

Manet, The Café Concert (In the Café) 1878

My first consideration was poetic form. I am a confirmed sonneteer.
This derogatory term I proudly embrace: structured verse, marked by
conventions of meter and rhyme, provides mechanisms that embody poetic
imagery in service of art and language. In a sense, a structured poem acts as
filter, barring words or phrases that might come more easily. The poet’s
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undertaking should not be intellectually flaccid. Thought, in the end, must

be served, and such should be rigorous and rigorously expressed. With
regard to length, the sonnet’s 14 lines eliminated this form. Likewise, length
proscription refused me the roundel, another favorite.
In the meantime, the question of rhyme itself emerged. A loose
format does not require rhyme. For the moment, I distanced myself from
that option.
Would I write in a third person or first person voice? If the latter,
whose? I re-examined Ezra Pound’s early poetry. He had often adopted the
voice of a persona, thus embodying an historical figure speaking his
thoughts. His formats were neither rigid nor necessarily strictly rhymed.
For my purposes, the notion of a “voice” making commentary on artistic
pursuit itself was alluring.
I would speak with someone’s voice. But whose? An examination of
the Manet painting showed three subjects in a crowded café. A 50ish male
patron at a bar faced the viewer. Next to him sat a woman patron, perhaps in
her late 30s. A waitress behind, unphased by the crowd around her, drained
a glass of ale.
A discovery came to the aid of my eye. An alternate title for this
painting was The Café Concert. The sense that entertainment unfolded for
the subjects at the café bar enabled me to examine their behavior more
closely. What was the artist Manet showing us?
The attentive older man, in black evening attire with top hat, was
clearly of a high social level. His type was known as a flanuer (according to
Baudelaire, “one who ambles a city in order to experience its life”).
Another, more familiar word for such a person would be boulevardier (a
sophisticated and worldly man-about-town). The plainly dressed younger
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woman, absorbed in her own thoughts, would not have accompanied him
that evening: her social class level (a most important element of life and
ethos in that period) would have precluded any kind of deep connection. But
they might have been acquainted, in one form or other. The waitress
swilling drink behind them provided a humorous counterpoint to this pair at
the bar, side-by-side, but not together!
Obviously I would have to follow Manet’s “script”. Knowledge of his
own life – a successful father who looked askance at artistic life, rejection by
the all-important Salon while seeing his great work relegated to the Salon
des Refusés (Exhibit of Rejected Art), and one marked by touching artistic
and personal relationship with Berthe Morisot – would come into play.
Manet worked quickly when rendering portrayals of social and café
life in Paris. His thoughts would have to come quickly as well. Four lines
for the man, four for the woman, and a couplet encompassing the imbibing
waitress and Manet’s practical next step as a creative artist came into being.
I decided, as Pound often did, to rhyme the verses, and undertook an abab
cdcd ee pattern.
The voice, the pattern, and the line endings, as chosen, satisfied my
artistic sensibility. The filtering and paring down of words and phrases is
apparent in the progression from rough draft to finished work (see
illustrations). In the writing of a poem, as in a playscript, every word is
critical and must be placed with a good deal of thought. The entire
experience of the poem is dependent upon such pursuit and such discipline.
Failure in the smallest part of the enterprise diminishes the entire
undertaking.
I have included below the rough drafts and finished poem.
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Writing this poem based upon a work by Manet, my favorite

Impressionist, and re-examining the poetry of Pound, enabled me to
combine my passion for poetry, the history of verse, and art history.
What could be more rewarding?

Draft, figure1

Draft, figure 2
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THOUGHTS OF MANET FINISHING A CAFÉ PAINTING

©2010 All Rights Reserved D. L. Guerra

With open ear, slanted nose, and watchful face,

While against the bar imposing fingers grip his cane,
Black-clad and beaver-hatted, this man owns his space
Much as my father, the judge. So sane.

Head tilted, eyes aside, ignoring the commotion,

With thoughts that tire more than consume….
Like me, has she encountered demotion?
Do we both inhabit the “rejected room”?

Ah, that brunette barmaid with berry “jabot”

Has no qualms. I must show this to Morisot!

FINAL VERSION
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