{"id":111970,"date":"2017-06-21T18:04:16","date_gmt":"2017-06-21T22:04:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=111970"},"modified":"2017-06-21T18:04:16","modified_gmt":"2017-06-21T22:04:16","slug":"who-but-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/21\/who-but-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"Who But the Sun?"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>

Ladies and gentlemen, the sun.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

You may have heard: today is\u00a0the summer solstice. That big ole sun out there is\u00a0going nowhere fast. It\u2019ll be hanging in the sky\u00a0for hours yet. You want nightfall? Fuck your nightfall!\u00a0Put a blanket over your head and leave the sun alone!<\/p>\n

As for the rest of you: if you\u2019re\u00a0looking for something to kick off your pagan celebrations, I dug through our archives in search of some verse\u00a0to\u00a0suit today\u2018s heliophilia vibes. Here\u2019s what I\u2019ve got: Baudelaire. In our Winter 1981 issue we ran nineteen poems by him\u2014translated by Richard Howard, who won our Hadada Award\u00a0this year<\/a>. One of these, \u201cThe Sun<\/a>,\u201d is as moving a tribute to that fiery ball of gas as has ever been written. A quick sample:<\/p>\n

Who but the sun persuades the lame to dance
\nas if their canes were maypoles, governing
\nthe resurrection of the harrowed fields,
\nand for the secret harvest of the heart
\ncommands immortal wheat to grow again!<\/p>\n

When, with a poet\u2019s will, the sun descends
\ninto the cities like a king incognito,
\nimpartially visiting palace and hospital,
\nthe fate of all things vile is glorified.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Subscribers can read the full poem here<\/a>. Nonsubscribers should subscribe now, at which time they, too, can read the whole poem, or recite it to the sun itself, or print it out and use a magnifying glass to focus the sun\u2019s rays on it until it bursts into flames\u2014a fitting way to celebrate the solstice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWho but the sun persuades the lame to dance \/ as if their canes were maypoles?\u201d A poem by Baudelaire from our archive, perfect for solstice celebration.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1188],"tags":[370,2654,26616,29259,29261,7221,22334,165,2047,2003,26179,29258,29262,29260],"class_list":["post-111970","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-the-archive","tag-back-issues","tag-charles-baudelaire","tag-digital-subscription","tag-french-poems","tag-heliophilia","tag-poems","tag-poems-in-translation","tag-poetry","tag-poets","tag-richard-howard","tag-solstice","tag-summer-solstice","tag-the-sun","tag-winter-1981"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWho But the Sun? 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