Incongruous juxtapositions and fantastic images mark the surrealistic movement of artists and writers. In their on-going exploration of French, third year students undertook the challenge of “automatic writing,” a technique coined and practiced by surrealistic poets of the early 20th century. Originally viewed as, “pessimistic, defiant, and revolutionary” surrealism developed, under French poet André Breton, into a productive discovery of the unconscious process of random thoughts and dreams evolving from a dark, convoluted labyrinth of man’s darkest side into a remarkable source of inspiration and creativity in later poets. "My first impression of surrealism wasn't really that great. But as I progressed with my poem, I tapped into my mind pretty well. Surrealism is beautiful and it's meaningful; the sky's the limit! There is no one to make you edit it, which makes it a hundred times better." Valerie Orijel, junior. Alemany French students focused their study on, La Fourmi (The Ant) by Robert Desnos 1900-1945 rendering their own version of his poem in order to better understand the structure and style while practicing the tradition of automatic writing. Students completed their final revision with hand drawn illustrations highlighting the visual nature of the style while portraying their own particular vocabulary. "This experience has been very different from things I have done before. It's almost like our soul was being revealed...the complete randomness of the poetry help us to feel without fear of being judged," writes junior, Danielle Grimm. Third year students are in the midst of their final performance semester and setting into motion the prewriting skills prerequisite to a successful completion of their final, formal writing assessment – an illustrated French children’s story. Finally, Tanya Siddiqui shared, "This poem was very exciting because it allowed me to discover what I'm attracted to -- simple things, yet very beautiful."
Le Hérrison
Un hérrison d'un cent centimètres
avec ses pantalons sur la tête
ça n'existe pas, ça n'existe pas
Un hérrison conduisant une voiture
en allant rapidement chez le coiffeur
ça n'existe pas, ça n'existe pas
Un hérrison mangeant des bonbons
mangeant des beignets et des moutons
ça n'existe pas, ça n'existe pas
Eh! Pourquoi pas?