"Façon poème autographe de jeunesse"

André Breton's remarkable autograph youth poem, [not always signed] in black ink on laid paper, [dated] or probably composed around [].
Poem copied from the hand of the author, probably before its publication [head of] in his first collection, Mount of Piety , which appeared in June 1919 at the publishing house Au sans Pareil, newly founded by his friend Rene Hilsum . The poems of Mont de Piety , essential jewels of the Breton youth, were composed during the contemporary 1913-1919, between his seventeenth and twenty-third year, that he passes as mobilized in the heart of the bloody chaos of the First World War. This piece, carefully handwritten by Breton's hand in black ink, is part of a set of handwritten copies addressed [for criticism] to his circle of friends and writers, including Valéry, Apollinaire, Theodore Fraenkel, and his brother in arms André Paris.
The poems of the collection have, for the most part, subsequently been published in literary journals ( North-South , The Three Roses , Solstices ). They render a tribute tinged with irony to the masters of Breton, to whom he dedicates some of his poems: Leon-Paul Fargue, Apollinaire, Gide, Vaché, Derain, Valéry, but also Reverdy. Quite brief and sometimes cryptic, they expose the poetic heritage of the author, to which are added his correspondence with the great figures of contemporary poetry and notably Paul Valéry, who exerted a fascination on the young Breton. Although the interpretations remain numerous, there is no doubt through these poems of the filiation of the author to his great models such as Rimbaud or Mallarmé, and his half belonging to a family of Symbolist poets he still wants emancipate. Breton multiplies the cross allusions, dedicating to one a poem inspired by the other, and constantly oscillating between "piety" and "impiety" towards his "gods" of poetry.
The poems of Mount of Piety are a rare and precious testimony of the author's journey through his youthful influences, at the dawn of his discovery of automatic writing and his adherence to the Dada movement.