SWEDEN: Man of the Sea

As someone once put it, the distinction between the minor and major poet is largely a matter of size: the greater the poet, the bigger his world. By this standard, France's Saint-John Perse was a giant from the beginning, for he wrote of the oceans, the deserts, the globe, and of a timeless Man. His form was neither verse nor prose, and to many the vivid imagery was enigmatic, possibly cryptic, as in Seamarks (1954 ):

The Sea . . . on its confines, under its falconry of white clouds, like a tax-free...

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