Follain, Jean (1903-71). French poet. Dedicated to simplicity of style and intimacy of focus, Follain's tenuous verse and scarcely weightier prose poems assiduously prospect a narrow vein of nostalgia, reconstructing glimpses of the country town of his childhood (Canisy, 1942). He insists on isolating trivial objects and gestures which, once poetically framed, emerge as poignant microcosms whose resonances transcend the minimalism of their overt content—as witness the poem ‘Métaphysique’ (from Exister, 1947), where the fragile bowl with the floral design which a countrywoman lifts up before her breasts becomes a cipher for human mortality and the sanctity of bodily existence.
[Roger Cardinal]
