"Larson's treatment of Ponge's tone is accessible and in being accessible reflects well the book's imagery and undulations of the natural spirit. What better platform for revolt and uprising than in being nurtured into confidence?" --Greg Bem, Yellow Rabbits Reviews

On the 50th anniversary of its original publication, The Song Cave is honored to publish the first English translation of Francis Ponge's Nioque of the Early-Spring. Ostensibly a book written to honor the season itself and the cycle of time, upon its first publication in Paris in May 1968, these notes took on a greater metaphorical meaning within this context, addressing the need for new beginnings and revolution.
Francis Ponge (1899-1988) was born in Montpellier, France, and is most famously the author of The Voice of Things (1942), Soap (1967) and The Making of the Prairie (1971). During World War II, Ponge joined the French Resistance. He also worked for the National Committee of Journalists, and was literary and artistic director of the communist weekly newspaper L'Action. From 1952 to 1967 he held a professorship at the Alliance Française in Paris, and was a visiting professor at Barnard College and Columbia University. Ponge's awards included the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, the Académie française's French National Poetry Prize and the Grand prix of the Société des gens de lettres.