Talk:Robert Desnos

Letter to Youki
"One of his most famous poems is "Letter to Youki", written after his arrest".

Is "Letter to Youki" really a poem? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 177.40.45.43 (talk) 15:29, 18 March 2012 (UTC)

Quote about gas chamber incident
This reference appears to be incorrect:

Griffin, Susan. 1996. "Can Imagination Save Us?" Utne Reader, July−August. It is online at Utne: http://www.utne.com/arts/can-imagination-save-us-buddhism-beginners-mind.aspx

but does not contain this quote which is in the wikipedia article, unless there is a fuller version in print or elsewhere.

This is the quote on Wikipedia:

''One day Desnos and others were taken away from their barracks. The prisoners rode on the back of a flatbed truck; they knew the truck was going to the gas chamber; no one spoke. Soon they arrived and the guards ordered them off the truck. When they began to move toward the gas chamber, suddenly Desnos jumped out of line and grabbed the hand of the woman in front of him. He was animated and he began to read her palm. The forecast was good: a long life, many grandchildren, abundant joy. A person nearby offered his palm to Desnos. Here, too, Desnos foresaw a long life filled with happiness and success. The other prisoners came to life, eagerly thrusting their palms toward Desnos and, in each case, he foresaw long and joyous lives.''

''The guards became visibly disoriented. Minutes before they were on a routine mission the outcome of which seemed inevitable, but now they became tentative in their movements. Desnos was so effective in creating a new reality that the guards were unable to go through with the executions. They ordered the prisoners back onto the truck and took them back to the barracks. Desnos never was executed. Through the power of imagination, he saved his own life and the lives of others.''

The quote was inserted Revision as of 22:46, 20 December 2009 (edit) (undo) 71.142.91.110 (talk)

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Desnos&diff=332930989&oldid=330664420

The reference was added Revision as of 10:49, 10 March 2013 (edit) (undo) Jamesmcardle (talk | contribs) https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Desnos&diff=543195349&oldid=543194470

--- The quote is almost identical to the text in "Developing Ecological Consciousness: Path to a Sustainable World" by Christopher Uhl, p 310.

There are slight differences which could easily arise in transcriptioni, e.g.

Wiki: "they knew the truck was going to the gas chamber"

Book' "knowing that the truck was going to the gas chamber"

The notes on p. 343, give the source as "7. Susan Griffin, "Can Imagination Save Us?" Utne Reader", the same as the wiki article.

See Look Inside: https://www.amazon.com/Developing-Ecological-Consciousness-Sustainable-Future/dp/0742532909?ie=UTF8&page=47&reader=1

The book was published in 2003, so it cannot have taken the text from wikipedia.

--

The story is also told in a similar way, but with different phrasing throughout in To Love The Marigold: Hope & Imagination By Susan Griffin, an essay in the book "The Impossible Will Take a Little While" by Paul Rogat Loeb, P.171.

See Look Inside: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Impossible-Will-Take-Little-While/dp/0465031730/ref=sr_1_fkmr2_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1466162686&sr=8-3-fkmr2&keywords=the+impossible+will+take+a+little+white+paul+loeb

Her article can also be found on https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/to-love-the-marigold-hope-and-imagination-by-susan-griffin/ It reads:


 * Text removed since it is copyrighted, please use the link instead.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Desnose (talk • contribs) 14:06, 17 June 2016 (UTC)


 * → Copyvio text removed. w.carter -Talk  14:29, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

--

The story is also told in Yuen, Nicky González (1994). The Politics of liberation : an introductory reader on political life and government in the United States Kendall/Hunt Pub. Co, Dubuque, Iowa p.426. This book precedes (1994) Griffin (1996). As the text is in 'snippet view' in Google Books, I will need to get hold of a copy to verify that it is exactly the same or different and will edit accordingly. I cannot track down any earlier text which contains this tale, so where has it originated? JamesMcArdle 01:10, 18 June 2016 (UTC) Note: the story in Yuen is also by Susan Griffin -- it appears in an article by her in the book Yuen edited. So Susan Griffin is the ONLY source of this story, though she has told it with slight differences in several different places. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:3007:2601:DF00:E9CC:3C41:1100:5824 (talk) 18:55, 10 September 2019 (UTC)

-- Since Susan Griffin's story appears in Griffin, S. (1996). 'To love the marigold: the politics of imagination'. Whole Earth Review (89), as Desnose and w.carter  point out, and in much the same words (though she adds that the story was related to her by Odette, and in this version the prisoners are all men), I've changed the reference given to that, until I (or anyone else) can track down a more direct reference to Odette's story. If the copyvio issue is resolved in this way, then should the clarification template be removed? JamesMcArdle 06:37, 18 June 2016 (UTC)

Applying improvements
Dear fellow editors, I am leaving the present message out of courtesy to other editors interested in (or watching) the present article. I would like to apply some improvements to the present article, and will therefore be deploying the and templates, making sure to disable them each time I have completed a task. Thank you for your understanding and patience. With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 15:20, 16 February 2019 (UTC)

✅ - Just an update to say I have done as much as I wanted for now, mainly to consolidate the sections on 'Selected works' (now ‘Publications’), 'References' and 'Further reading'. I will return at a later date to work on the prose itself. Thank you. With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 00:28, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:36, 13 March 2019 (UTC)
 * Robert Desnos au camp de Terezin, 1945.jpg

Expanding 'Further reading' with books for future citations
Dear fellow editors, Again, I am leaving the present message out of courtesy to other editors interested in (or watching) the present article. I am in the process of expanding the Further reading section with completed cite book templates I intend to use as future references, since these should be in the same citation style, per MOS:FURTHER. In the near future, I will start expanding the prose in the article itself (and pick up these citations as I go along), at which time I will resume deploying the in use and under construction templates each time I hold an editorial session. Thank you for your understanding. With kind regards; Patrick. ツ Pdebee.(talk)(guestbook) 16:51, 25 April 2019 (UTC)