Something surprising happens often during [Ponge's] writing. It is as if the object itself, a stump or an orange, has links with the human psyche, and the unconscious provides material it would not give if asked directly. The unconscious passes into the object and returns. The union of the object with the psyche moves slowly, and the poem may take four or five years to write…. The title [of Le Parti Pris des Choses] means "taking the side of things." I suggest that Ponge is refusing to exploit things, either as symbols or as beings of a lower class. The title also suggests another meaning: that the things themselves have opinions, or points of view. Ponge has confidence that things are fruitful and nourishing, not hostile, not emptied of spirit, not inferior, not unreal. (p. 107)

Ponge in general remains near the object all the way through the poem...