{{Short description|French poet}} {{Expand French|topic=bio|Raoul Ponchon|date=January 2012}} [[File:Ponchon Muse gaillarde frontispice ed 1939.jpeg|thumb|Ponchon, ''Muse gaillarde'' frontispice, ed. 1939]] '''Raoul Ponchon''' ({{IPA|fr|ʁaul pɔ̃ʃɔ̃}}; born 30 December 1848 in [[La Roche-sur-Yon]], [[France]], died 3 December 1937 in [[Paris]], [[France]]) was a French poet. A friend of [[Arthur Rimbaud]], he was one of only "seven known recipients" of the first edition of ''[[A Season in Hell]]''.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robb |first=Graham |title=Rimbaud |date=2000 |publisher=W.W. Norton and Co.}}</ref> He was a contributor to the satirical weekly ''[[Le Courrier français (1884–1913)|Le Courrier français]]''.
Raoul was one of the founders of the [[Zutiste|Zutist Group]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Wagneur |first=Jean-Didier |date=3 December 2014 |title=Hydropathes et Buveurs d'eau |url=https://www.liberation.fr/livres/2014/03/12/hydropathes-et-buveurs-d-eau_986530/}}</ref>
Though he did not care for honors, he was elected to the [[Académie Goncourt]] in 1924.<ref>{{Cite web |last=photographique (commanditaire) |first=Agence Rol Agence |date=1927 |title=7/12/27, jury [du] prix Goncourt [debout, de g. à d.] Gaston Chérau, Raoul Ponchon, Pol Neveux, Jean Ajalbert, Rosny jeune [et, assis] Hennique, Rosny aîné [réunis au restaurant Drouant] : [photographie de presse] / [Agence Rol] |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b531938546 |access-date=2026-03-11 |website=Gallica |language=EN}}</ref> He was made a knight of the Legion of Honor on 4 January 1925, and elevated to the rank of officer on 12 December 1932.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Notice |url=http://www2.culture.gouv.fr/public/mistral/leonore_fr?ACTION=CHERCHER&FIELD_1=COTE&VALUE_1=LH/2196/40 |access-date=2026-03-11 |website=www2.culture.gouv.fr}}</ref>
He considered himself a poetaster unworthy of official publication,<ref>… Je suis un poète de troisième rang, je ne puis admettre que l’on me mette au premier », to Marcel Coulon, cited in ''Toute la Muse''.</ref> and the only book he published in his lifetime was ''La Muse au cabaret'', which appeared in 1920, when he was 72 years old.
Ponchon is the first entry in [[Guillaume Apollinaire]]'s ''Contemporains pittoresques''. Apollinaire writes: "The last of our [[Dionysus|Bacchic]] poets, and one of our best, is an angry drunk [...] this little miracle of a lyric journalist is perhaps the only example now existing of a writer or poet in whose talent appears no immediate trace of any foreign literature. Notwithstanding his other talents, his intentional manner, his spontaneous art, it is above all this that renders him interesting, since, my God, we well know that he's spent his life trying to do violence to himself in order to remain an insignificant poet. It's a sort of pride rare in our days, and to have it much is necessary: one needs a lot of talent, and one needs to drink."<ref>{{Cite book |last=Apollinaire |first=Guillaume |url=https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007344916 |title=Contemporains pittoresques |date=1929 |publisher=Les Éditions de la belle page |series=Collection "Le Livre neuf"; 3 |location=Paris}}</ref>
Apollinaire recounts an anecdote in which excessive drunkenness almost cost Ponchon his life, and speaks of the rare devotion he bore towards his friends, despite his general [[misanthropy]] and bursts of temper.
Ponchon died on 3 December 1937, at the hôpital Saint-Joseph in Paris, after an attack of [[pulmonary edema]].<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b105017950 |title=[Raoul Ponchon : nécrologie] |date=1937 |language=EN}}</ref>
==See also== *[[Nina de Callias|Nina de Villard de Callias]] *[[Zutiste]]
==References== {{Reflist}}
==External links== * {{Internet Archive author |sname=Raoul Ponchon}} * {{Librivox author |id=12931}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Ponchon, Raoul}} [[Category:1848 births]] [[Category:1937 deaths]] [[Category:20th-century French non-fiction writers]] [[Category:French poets]] [[Category:French male poets]] [[Category:20th-century French male writers]]
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