A collection of Pablo Picasso's Surrealist poetry can now be
found in The Burial of the Count of Orgaz & Other Poems, coedited
by Jerome Rothenberg and Pierre Joris. Like his artwork Picasso's
poems were experimental and energetic. A short excerpt of one
of Picasso's poems reads: "orange blossom jasmine cabinet perfumed
with pine scent little sugar cube stuck sentry-like on point of
bayonet drawn from his gaze and bleeding honey from his fingers
on the dove's wings burning at lake bottom in the skillet of his
eyes shows up exactly at the happy hour with its flower needle
pin prick poised to touch the sea's snout blue bull wingèd
incandescent spread out at the ocean's rim." In an article about
the collection of Picasso's poetry the Christian Science Monitor writes, "The writings are unlikely to remake Picasso's image into that
of a poet, at least in the conventional sense. His poems are
not deliberate constructions of meaning, but rather rippling
Surrealist wordplay."
