A five-page poem (in French) signed St. John Perse makes the first issue of Hemispheres* the first U.S.-French literary quarterly, a minor belletristic event.
It also serves to remind Americans that the poet with one of the most notable double lives since Christopher Marlowe is now consultant for French poetry at the Library of Congress. For St. John Perse is the pseudonym of Marie Rene Auguste Alexis Saint-Leger Leger, for years France's celebrated diplomat and wily Permanent Secretary for Foreign Affairs.
For 16 years (1924-40) Léger presided behind the scenes of France's Foreign...
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