Monday, February 09, 2009

ange barbu

Last week we visited friends in Bad Honnef, a town on the Rhine where we've been many times, and my friend Ursula casually mentioned she'd passed a plaque in town saying Guillaume Apollinaire had lived there briefly more than a hundred years ago. Needless to say we set out to find it. Wherever he actually lived is quite gone, as some semi-modern apartments now stand behind the plaque.

Sleepy Bad Honnef, Germany seems an unlikely place for a pioneering French poet. I asked Ursula why on earth Apollinaire was living there. She explained "It's pretty here!"

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Isn't it funny that you question his living there for a year. Your year in China may well have the same expalantion as his; the old, 'It was there.'

Sometimes we just need a change of scenery.

SarahJane said...

I have to agree that Bad Honnef is pretty, but surely not half as stimulating as Paris.

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