Simona

Simonais a short story/poem written by surrealist writer Herman Waldman in 1955. It is written on the famed Cafe Simona, meeting place of "The Exiles" in the 1950s.

The poem
Simona. A lady first, but as important the place that lady keeps. One enters and the smoke-filled sombre of the place does take hold, but the gloom inside is certain cause for inspiration, and none would wish to see such haze removed. Simona barely scrapes past the meter-fifty, but is quite quick to charm her patrons with her actions and her knowledges. Such a short stature from the lady did command respect and admiration, her gin and tonic drinks inebriating the writers and the artists in a way no drug could achieve. Through the liquor and the haze these artists found inspiration, for the written word or the painted arts. We were certain to die from the chain of cigarettes and drink quicker than most, but such an atmosphere provided a melting pot of ideas on which to build. In this, a bastion of the prewar Brunant, one would find the very core of the renewing modernism, the start of an artistic rebirth. Not least due to Simona, and the lady who kept it.