Fombeure, Maurice (1906-81). French poet. Fombeure's first collection, Silences sur le toit (1930), reflected his desire to steer poetry away from lofty abstraction and linguistic excess towards a renewal of its popular roots and a natural simplicity—‘la poésie des gouttes d'eau’. This orientation brought him into the orbit of Cadou and the poets of the École de Rochefort, with whom he collaborated. In the best poems of subsequent volumes, such as A dos d'oiseau (1942), Sortilèges vus de près (1947), Le Vin de La Haumuche (1952), Rabelaisian gusto blends successfully, or alternates effectively, with a more elegiac inspiration. Although his poetry is primarily rural, inspired by his native Touraine, Fombeure, a teacher by profession, was an habitué of the Brasserie Lipp in Paris and an enthusiastic celebrant of the literary life who impressed contemporaries with his ability to inject everyday living with humour and poetry.
[Michael Sheringham]
