Ponge, Francis 1899–

Ponge, an influential French poet and critic considered a forerunner of the New Novelists, has been termed a phenomenologist by Sartre and others. Although Ponge denies that classification, as he denies all neatly stereotypical categories of thinking, it is true that he is concerned with the development of human awareness. His works, too, defy classification; he calls them "proèmes." (See also CLC, Vol. 6.)