Fredegund France

<p><em>Fredegund France</em> is the second book of poetry written by American poet Richard Robinson. The poetry is both modern and not so modern. The theme is France but a different kind of France than what one might visit today or yesterday even. It?s a France in the mind. Or it?s a place where France and the mind cross. In his own words in the preface the author says: What can I say France is to me like a woman the one that got away maybe or a vintage bottle of wine that one drank once and could never find again. She is to me what Woman is to Villiers [de l?Isle-Adam]... As for Villiers? concept of Woman Léon Bloy describes it as follows:</p><p><br></p><p><em>It has nothing to do with a pleading with a dithyrambic paranymph with such and such fawning praise for the dangerous Sex. It has to do with a renewal of earthly Paradise after the harsh winter of six thousand years. It has to do with rediscovering that famous Garden of Voluptuousness symbol and </em>accomplishment <em>of Woman which all men search gropingly for throughout the centuries. </em>[<em>The Resurrection of Villiers</em>...]</p><p><br></p><p>That is what <em>Fredegund France</em> is and as the author says it is very banal.</p><p><br></p><p>Here is an excerpt from the volume the poem <em>Laus Perenni</em>s:</p><p><br></p><p><em>And gone are the days of </em>gestes<em> and tonnes</em></p><p><em>Of cider or ambrosia or fermented mead</em></p><p><em>Quaffed between daybreak and 3 and the need</em></p><p><em>For damsels in forgotten towers to get undone</em></p><p><em>The Veleda and the hordes of blonde leudes</em></p><p><em>Lying in wait in the Septentrion. And I</em></p><p><em>Like a Sigismund foreseeing myself dead</em></p><p><em>At the bottom of a well and hearing</em></p><p><em>Above the aqueous and glaucous swell</em></p><p><em>The stagnant echoes of a </em>laus perennis<em> -</em></p><p><em>Not for me not for me not for me...</em></p><p><br></p>