Anthology and preface: Christophe Meurée, Christos Nikou
Translation: Androniki Dimitriadou
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Alexis Alvarez, Zaïneb Hamdi, Quentin Volvert, Nicolas Grégoire, Gioia Kayaga (Joy Slam), Maxime Coton, Charline Lambert, Lisette Lombé, Kathleen Lor, Célestin de Meeûs, Thibaut Binard, Aurélien Dony, Éric Piette, Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody, Harry Szpilmann
Find the book here
Young 1 Belgian poets 2 of french expression: Poetry as foundation of «a new hope 3»
Speaking in 1972 at the Belgian Royal Academy of French Language and Literature [Académie royale de langue et de littérature françaises de Belgique], the French poet Yves Bonnefoy (1923-2016) put the poetic writing, which requires more resignations and conversions than pleasures, in the constellation of hope: “I always destroy. And I am a little interested in whether something good, in my opinion, is lost, if it moves, I told you, in the constellation of hope 4“. Hope and purity are in this sense two basic qualities of poetry, and consequently of the poetic soul: “on the one hand, hope which envisages that existence can be a division and therefore life has meaning, on the other hand, purity that deconstructs the consecutive illusions in which hope sinks 5“, Bonnefoy also proposes. Both in terms of form and content, these two qualities make the poem always up-to-date and eternally new.
The same undoubtedly applies to Belgian poetry of French expression. On the one hand, its history is still recent, to the extent that it is indistinguishable from the poetry production of France, except for the last two centuries. The first representatives are without a doubt Émile Verhaeren (1855-1916) and Maurice Maeterlinck (1862-1949, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1911). On the other hand, the lyrical side of the production of the “Flat Country” has never lost its freshness. Belgian poetry has always been characterized by inspirations that seem wrong in the eyes of the great European literary currents. So the combination of symbolism and naturalism at the turn of the 19th and 20th century appears as the symbol of the quest of hybridity that runs through the entire history of Belgian literature. Like in childhood, when the world seems vast and everything seems possible, especially the impossible.
“The gift of childhood, which serious people call prophecy whilst others deride it, characterizes our poets perhaps more than anywhere else 6” wrote Werner Lambersy (1941 -…) at the beginning of anthology La Poésie francophone de Belgique [The francophone poetry of Belgium]. False childhood innocence leaves its mark on some of Maurice Maeterlinck’s poems, which are written as fairy tales, as well as on the poems of Maurice Carême (1899-1978), the undisputed master of the genre, which have been recited by children all over the world and in all languages. The mischiefs of the German hero, who became a Belgian national symbol thanks to the novel by Charles De Coster (1827-1879), La Légende d’Ulenspiegel [The Legend of Ulenspiegel], are repeated in the works of Géo Norge (1898-1990) or Henri Michaux (1899-1984) – a comic lyricism without hesitations. We smile and laugh a lot reading even today the works of Jean-Pierre Verheggen (1942 -…), Timotéo Sergoï (1964 -…) or Laurent Demoulin ( 1966 -…), to refer to only three examples of a particularly heterogeneous literary production.
The controversial relationship with reality, so characteristic of the small kingdom where the rain lightens in an unrealistic way the landscape, allowed the currents of symbolism and surrealism to flourish in Belgium much more than the rest of Europe (mainly, compared to its close neighbors, French, Dutch, German and English poets). The “end of century” movement (fin de siècle) saw the flourishing of a profusion of symbolist poets who marked Belgian poetry of French expression: Georges Rodenbach (1855-1898), Émile Verhaeren, Albert Giraud (1860-1929), Charles Van Lerberghe (1861-1907), Max Elskamp (1862-1931), Maurice Maeterlinck, Albert Mockel (1866-1945). Imaginary on symbolist poets wasn’t incompatible with a naturalistic vision of the world, formed by Verhaeren: what seems inconceivable in France, which is fond of limits and unreceptive schools, was cultivated until 1830 with great pleasure in – under constant foreign occupation – Belgium, which has learned throughout history to proudly resist the thrall.
Belgian surrealism, known internationally through the painting of René Magritte (1898-1967), experienced great productivity, to the point of the most impressive longevity on the European continent, with the team from Brussels consisting of Paul Nougé (1895-1967), Camille Goemans (1900-1960), Marcel Lecomte (1900-1966), Louis Scutenaire (1905-1987), Irène Hamoir (1906-1994) or even Marcel Mariën (1920-1993), and with the Hainaut team, which included Fernand Dumont (1906-1945), Achille Chavée (1906 -1969) and Marcel Havrenne (1912-1957) and their descendants who followed a shorter path: Christian Dotremont (1922-1979), who founded the CoBrA art movement, André Blavier (1922-2001), who followed the OuLiPo movement [Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle (Laboratory of Potential Literature)], but also the heads of Phantomas or Le Daily-Bul magazines, such as Théodore Koenig (1922-1997), Pierre Puttemans (1933-2013), André Balthazar (1934-2014), Tom Gutt (1941-2002) etc. As Paul Nougé wrote in 1945, in one of his poems in the form of a manifesto:
TO
PUBLIC OFFICERS
AND TO
POETS POETS
TO
PROPAGATION
TO
FURY
TO
CONFIDENCE
TO VAIN
TO INNOCENCE
TO THE PROPHETS
AS WELL AS TO VIRTUOSOS
TO REMIND CONTINUOUSLY
THAT
THE EXPERIENCE CONTINUES 7
The relationship with the written language is equally unique in Belgium. The romantic myth that language is a fundamental element of national genius has not worked: none of the three languages of the country (French, Dutch, German) belongs to it completely, to the extent that Germany, Netherlands and France are considered guarantors of some linguistic purity. The use of the french literary language is therefore viewed with suspicion, both by the neighbors of the Hexagon and the Belgians themselves, who oscillate between the fear of not being recognized or understood within their own linguistic space and the desire to play with freedom, a characteristic of multi-origin. “The language for which we lose every hope / to reduce it by learning it” (“La langue qu’on désespère / D’amoindrir en l’apprenant 8“), as aptly noted by Jan Baetens (1957 -…). Therefore, three attitudes are possible and (strangely, perhaps) compatible: the overparticular orthodoxy, the studied deviation of linguistic rules, or the cogitation on the very foundations of (implicit) speech or language.
Émile Verhaeren ‘s verbal ingenuity plus prosodic and metrical freedom pave the way in which, even today, many Belgian poets are lost. Apart from the free verse, the prose poem which Verhaeren himself had already worked, after Charles Baudelaire, flourished in all its forms in french-speaking Belgium, turning lyricism towards narrative, as in Paul Nougé, Henri Michaux or Marcel Leconde, towards recitation on the verge of rhythmic narration, as in François Emmanuel (1952 -…) or even towards essay as in Claire Lejeune (1926-2008). The works of the late Thibaut Binard (1980-2005) and also those of Kathleen Lor (1983 -…), Maxime Coton (1986 -…), Aurélien Dony ( 1993 -…) or Zaïneb Hamdi (1990 -…), to a different degree, explore from the beginning these traces of a poetry that oscillates between recitation and narration. The powerful voices of slam poets Lisette Lombé (1978 -…) and Gioia Kayaga (Joy Slam, 1990 -…) enclose the recitation and the song. Respectively, the short forms of poetry and the elliptical structures allow the unlimited interpretation of the meaning, as in the twins Gabriel (1920-1992) and Marcel Picqueray (1920-1997), in Mimy Kinet (1948-1996 ), André Sempoux (1935-2019), Marc Dugardin (1946 -…), Marc Quaghebeur (1947 -…), Yves Namur (1952- …), Philippe Lekeuche (1954 -…) or even Otto Ganz (1970 -…). In the new generation, Alexis Alvarez (1980 -…), Eric Piette (1983 -…), Nicolas Grégoire (1985 -…) or Quentin Volvert (1997 -…) artfully combine brevity and unlimited interpretation of meaning. Sign of a post modernism which is fully supported by some poets, the most gifted of their generation refuse to go with the flow and form texts that touch the narrative period and the short breath of the short form, following a straight line that allows them to dig deeper and deeper into the language to examine it carefully: Célestin de Meeûs (1991 -…), Charline Lambert (1989 -…), Harry Szpilmann (1980 -…), American 9 Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody (1984 -…) and Antoine Wauters 10 (1981 -…) are among them.
Poetry is also a matter of portayal, and many poets experiment with both the pen and the brush or typographic tools to explore beyond language. Predecessors such as Paul Nougé, Henri Michaux or, better yet, Christian Dotremont with his famous logograms continue to shine far beyond the borders of the “Flat Country”. In this context, Lizette Lobe’s agonistic collages are part of a long tradition that begins with the surrealists: Édouard Léon Théodore Mesens/E.L.T. Mesens (1903-1971), Jane Graverol (1905-1984) and Marcel Mariën.
Surrealism, which has continued to shine in arts for almost a century, is now projected as one of the main features that composes Belgian fantasy. It’s because the people of this country have a relationship with reality, that is at least ambiguous. In Belgium, realism is necessarily unreal. The Belgian poet finds what crawls beneath the outer surface, even when expressing the aesthetic choice to display a bluntness without shyness – let’s consider the incomparable geniuses of William Cliff (1940 -…) or Eugène Savitzkaya (1955 -…).
Surprisingly, some concern for orthodoxy leads many poets, such as Fernand Verhesen (1913-2009), to adopt regular forms, without surprises. However, even when a Marcel Thiry (1897-1977), an Odilon-Jean Périer (1901-1928), a Liliane Wouters (1930-2016), a William Cliff or a Laurent Demoulin return to normal lyrics in metric form or in fixed forms such as the sonnet, they undermine it by using a sense of contradiction or challenge, which breaks away irrevocably from pompous lyricism. The reversal of syntax or the creation of unexpected by maneuvering a seemingly simple formulation is what fascinates, for example, Philippe Jones (1924-2016) or Yann Battens. In fact, it is the simplicity – which is the outline – that tests both the content of words and their immediate meanings. Thus, the poetry of Jean de Bosschère (1878-1953), Robert Vivier (1894-1989), Marcel Thierry, Jacques Izoard (1936-2008) or, more recently, of Caroline Lamarche (1955- …) and Laurence Vielle (1968 -…) dig ditches that shake the foundations of these external forms which we think is good to call reality.
Behind the anecdote often emerges the temptation of something unsaid that pertains to neither an ideal nor a mystery with dramatic tones. The ritual of everyday life, “in words of nothing, in words of little”, to use the beautiful expression of Guy Goffette (1947 -…), allows us to penetrate into the heart of the mystery that lies beneath surface of things. Better than the attitude of the omniscient poet who undertakes the task of considering the world in its greatness or splendor, the humility of the Belgian poets of the second half of the 20th century reveals, but without paying attention, bottomless abysses, in the service of which they should write: Henry Bauchau (1913-2012), David Scheinert (1916-1996), François Jacqmin (1929-1992), Colette Nys- Mazure (1939 -…), Christian Hubin (1941 -…), Corinne Hoex (1946- …), Évelyne Wilwerth (1947 -…) , Guy Goffet, Françoise Lison-Leroy (1951 -…), Yves Namur, François Emmanuel, Francis Dannemark (1955 -…), Philippe Lekes, each in his own way follows this path which undoubtedly gathers the vast majority of Belgian poets of the second half of the 20th century. From this point of view, the tendency towards the wisdom of the Far East deeply marks the poetry of Christian Dotremont, Henry Bauchau, Werner Lambersy or more recently Olivier Coyette (1975 -…). The distant becomes a way of exploring the close, so close that it seems infinitely foreign.
The 21st century denies neither the unsaid of little, nor the infinity of the abyss: today’s Belgian poets have dared, each in his own way, to face the void which sends them back a still unknown image of themselves. Even more than the previous generation, they were able to infiltrate the modern world, to express its symbolic violence that oppresses the souls as well as the beauty that in turn elevates them. The time has come for the Greek audience to discover this new generation of poets, almost thirty years after the previous Anthology of Belgian poetry of french expression, published by Sotiris G. Tsampiras 11.
The fifteen Belgian poets of French expression gathered in this anthology were born between 1978 and 1997. They all began their careers after 2000. This chronological choice goes beyond the wonderful work of Yves Namur “La nouvelle poésie française de Belgique” [New French Poetry of Belgium]which was intended, as its subtitle suggests, for “Une lecture de poètes nés après mai 68 12” [A reading of poets born after May 68]. His work had already identified some of the talents found in this anthology: Thibaut Binard, Kathleen Lor, Nicolas Grégoire and Maxime Coton. The writing of these young creators was nourished by reading of their distinguished compatriots (Bauchau, Michaux, Nougé, Verhaeren etc.), great French and French-speaking writers (Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Rimbaud, Paul Éluard, Blaise Cendrars, André du Bouchet, Benjamin Fondane, Gherasim Luca, Loránd Gáspár, etc) or even russian literature (as in the poetry of Célestin de Meeûs) or Spanish-American literature (as, for example, in Alexis Alvarez and Thibaut Binard). However, their writing is completely original and does not imitate any tradition or style. Reading their collections (and the poems presented here), one can only be impressed by the spirit, the lyrical momentum, the struggle against all kinds of ideologies, elements that idealize the poetic process of this new generation that does not stop rebuilding – without linguistic tricks – today’s world, aiming to “repairing / healing” both this world and the universe of poetry itself. Belgian poets are solitary and solidary researchers who seek to reconcile the individual with the collective, to the heart of existence (social, poetic, political, etc.), as revelation and presence in the world.
We could make a comparison between Belgian poetry and the three colors of the Belgian flag (black, yellow, red) at the beginning of the 21st century, when the federal constitution of state defined a national identity that was always considered unequivocally problematic. Mourning black marks the descent into turmoil, grief and the promise of a future reanimation 13, as well as the rejection of vanity: “In alchemy, black means the primeval matter that must be – in the work – turned into a philosophers’ stone. This black soil is therefore a fertile soil from which we must extract by succesive processes the hidden fertility 14“. This fertile land of poetry is plowed with determination by those poets whose action negates the supposed spiritual dryness of the “Generation Y” to which they belong. Better yet, they take advantage of technology and social media to make their work known and / or to support topical issues (Maxime Coton, Lisette Lombé, Aurélien Dony, Gioia Kayaga are arguably the most active in this direction). Against a background of golden sand, yellow is then the symbol of the magic gold of alchemists, here of poets as alchemists of speech who transform their own reality, their own sensitivity into a poetic act. This color also refers to sunlight, but also to the flowers and wild plants that grow in Belgium: such as galium, yellow anemones or yellow water lilies. Finally, red is the color of fire, vital energy, blood, fiery love, revolution, struggle. The fire of creation enlivens the light of these young writers, which will lighten their path in the heart of the world, returning back to the source of poetry (poetry from the Greek verb ποιείν / ποιέω-ῶ which means “I make, I create”): creating a better world in a very real sense. The Belgian flag shares the three colours with the myth of the phoenix which is the symbol of quintessence: these young poets know how to reanimate a world through the lyrical language, which is thus revived by these alchemists of speech.
A detailed record of the features and themes presented in the new Belgian poetry is impossible because of the peculiarities of the authors which are so strong and so different. However, we can point out that all of them conceive poetry as a large field of experimentation, at the beginning of which lies the “creative impulse” (“impulsion créatrice 15“) of Rimbau. The poets display an exceptional ingenuity in general and stylistic subjects by combining heterogeneous elements: compositions, techniques, forms, rhythms. Faithful to the homeland of the “linguistically naughty”, to use the successful expression of Marc Quaghebeur 16, and worthy successors of Émile Verhaeren, the young poets remain disobedient to the regular verse (in metrical form). They managed to merge into their universe a modernity they inherited from previous models, which they assimilated into their own “here and now” with the highest degree of originality.
This generation knows how to use space on the page as well as space beyond the page. These poets move skillfully from the pose poem / poème en prose (Thibaut Binard, Gioia Kayaga, Harry Szpilmann, Charline Lambert) to the verse / verset, which is characterized by “sets that exceed the meter of the line, and that can even occupy many lines, up to an entire paragraph 17“. The rhymes (especially in Zaïneb Hamdi and Gioia Kayaga) are close to the free verse (used by Alexis Alvarez, Éric Piette, Célestin de Meeûs, Quentin Volvert or Kathleen Lor). The white space is now as important as the text, a space that is not “space inserted into the time of a text. It is a part of its progression, the visual part of saying 18“. The white spaces are “zones of silence, as if the poet did not say it all 19“, “impressions of rhythm […] capable of being interpreted proportionally as differences in speed, density or intensity 20“, a fact that is seen lively in the texts of Thibaut Binard, Nicolas Grégoire, Charline Lambert, Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody or Aurélien Dony. Eager to diligently combine rhythm and typography, Alexis Alvarez and Maxime Coton (and to some extent Célestin de Meeûs) play enthusiastically with vertical (/), mid-size dashes (-), bold or color, while Charline Lambert dares to cut a word in its “heart” just to finish it on the next line. Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody turns to “boule de neige” of OuLiPo movement, while Lisette Lombé, Alexis Alvarez and Maxime Coton work in slogan texts, which oscillate between advertising and telegram renewing the surrealist tradition started by Paul Nougé.
A mirror of the constructive dialogue between poetry and the arts (music, painting, photography, theater, etc.), the works of young Belgian poets create, as Richard Strauss says, a “cohesive link [which] unites all the arts, which bow in love to one another, prepared in joy for games and celebrations 21”, without failing to capture the most raw, sometimes, social reality. Theodor W. Adorno rightly pointed out that “the boundaries between genres of art are fluid 22“. This statement finds its best implementation in the new Belgian poetry of French expression: Éric Piette creates poems that are like small movie frames taken on a train between two destinations, Célestin de Meeûs and Harry Szpilmann “take” poem-photographs, Alexis Alvarez makes graffiti poems. Of course, we do not forget the collages of Lisette Lombé, to which we have already referred. This is why this poetry, at the crossroads of genres, gives priority to orality, either as a recurring thematic concern (especially in Charline Lambert and Harry Szpilmann) or as a formal practice. Thanks to slam (Lisette Lombé and Gioia Kayaga), which is a performing and representational activity (between music and theatrical recitation), poetry has reconnected with a wider audience than the narrow circle of the educated. Alexis Alvarez and Aurélien Dony are vocalists, Maxime Coton founded a jazz rock band and Quentin Volvert is also interested in music. Aurélien Dony stages theatrical productions and reading events in order to make poetry accessible, thus bringing it closer to the performing arts.
Two major thematic areas seem to dominate Belgian contemporary poetry production. On the one hand, the relationship with the Other or with “oneself as another”, to use a title by the French philosopher Paul Ricœur 23. The inexhaustible matter of love is obviously present: frustration in Thibaut Binard, ritual in Aurélien Dony and Maxime Coton, physical experience in Alexis Alvarez or Charline Lambert, who manages to weave eroticism and fullness of sence into a constantly talking human body. The physical sense is also at the heart of the work of Kathleen Lor or Harry Szpilmann, who, like Charline Lambert, Aurélien Dony or Maxime Coton explore the inherent bond that unites natural phenomena and the body that accepts them as experience of perception, no matter how subtle it is. In this generation of poets, human relationships seem like an encounter with what is arguably different from oneself, including family ties (for example in Éric Piette or Maxime Coton). The poet’s course leads him to move forward in front of what will inevitably remain foreign to him. The world is an area that can be observed forever (Thibaut Binard, Célestin de Meeûs), external wanderings carve an inner path of initiation and possibly empathy (especially in Célestin de Meeûs and Éric Piette). If frustration lurks in the poet, he accepts it as it is and carves an uncertain cartography of his own mission (Harry Szpilmann, Nicolas Grégoire, Maxime Coton, Aurélien Dony) or of his own identity (unique to Gioia Kayaga and Zaïneb Hamdi).
On the other hand, and following the first thematic area, there is a vague concern for the future. Among the threats: the deafening silence of the world (Éric Piette), the ghost of death and mourning (Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody) or the dangerous course of modern history. The poet is decisively alert to the pain and dangers that lurk, facing with courage the hot issues of today: the Rwandan genocide in Nicolas Grégoire, the wars in Quentin Volvert, the immigration crisis in Célestin de Meeûs and Aurélien Dony, the racism and xenophobia, oppression of minorities and religious extremism in Zaïneb Hamdi, Gioia Kayaga and Lisette Lombé. For the latter, writing is a shelter and is “armed with a fire that does not fight” and chooses “the great upheaval of everyday life”, according to the key verses of the poem entitled “Asma”.
As the works of Charline Lambert, Lisette Lombé or Kathleen Lor show, the tendency towards inner reflection does not prevent someone from entering fullness through the poetic attitude, because, in the end, “joy is / what directs” , as Charline Lambert writes, a joy that insisting to the work of Gioia Kayaga, whose name is on it’s own a symbol of resistance to misery. “To possess the sensible”, as Kathleen Lor writes, to return to the source of the poetic event, to banish any kind of evil in and through language, to summon the darkness in order to dissolve it immediately through the bright light of poetry: this is the mission undertaken by the new Belgian poetry of French expression.
As Yves Bonnefoy, the theoretical and great defender of poetry, Odysseus Elytis (1911-1996, Nobel Prize in Literature in 1979) considers poetry “as a source of innocence full of revolutionary forces and as his [my] mission to direct these forces against a world his [my] conscience cannot accept, hoping, through constant transformations, to make this world more in harmony with his [my] dreams 24”. And the Responder, in his collection Maria Nefeli, says:
Catch the lightning on your way
man; make it last; you can!
From the smell of grass from the fire of the sun
on the lime of the endless kiss
to make a century 25;
This is the poetry that “repatriates” (“rapatrie 26“), in the words of Jean-Pierre Siméon, the young Belgian poets who know how to “catch the lightning”. The present Anthology of Young Belgian Poets of French Expression, proves it impressively 27.
Christophe Meurée
Doctor of Languages and Letters of the Catholic University of Leuven (UCLouvain)
First Grade Scientific Assistant in the Archives and Museum of Literature in Brussels
[Premier assistant scientifique aux Archives & Musée de la Bruxelles].
Christos Nikou
Member of Special Scientific Staff of the Department International and Eureopean Studies at the University of Piraeus
Member of Collaborating Teaching Staff at the Hellenic Open University
Doctor of Comparative Philology of Sorbonne Université – Faculté des Lettres.
1. The anthologists and authors of this preface would like to express their gratitude to the Promotion des Lettres service of the Walloon-Brussels Federation and in particular to Nausicaa Dewez, Laurent Moosen and Thibault Carion.
2. The masculine gender is used in this preface as a neutral gender, in order to lighten the text (eg poet / poetess).
3. Yves Bonnefoy, L’Improbable et autres essais, Paris, published by Mercure de France, 1980, p. 120: «Il faut […] réinventer un espoir. Dans l’espace secret de notre approche de l’être, je ne crois pas que soit de poésie vraie qui ne cherche aujourd’hui, et ne veuille chercher jusqu’au dernier souffle, à fonder un nouvel espoir» («It must […] reinvent hope. In the secret space of our approach to being, I do not believe that there is true poetry that does not seek today, and does not want to seek until the last breath, to give new hope»).
4. Yves Bonnefoy, «Sur la fonction du poème», in La Vérité de parole et autres essais, Paris, published by Mercure de France, series «Folio essais», 1995 [1988], p. 514. The French text: «Toujours je suis en train de détruire. Et peu m’importe si quelque bien, à ma mesure, s’y perd, puisque c’est donc sous le signe, je vous l’ai dit, d’un espoir».
5. Yves Bonnefoy, Notre besoin de Rimbaud, Paris, du Seuil publications, series «Librairie du xxie siècle», 2009 (from the publisher’s presentation).
6. Werner Lambersy, La Poésie francophone de Belgique, Paris, Le Cherche Midi publications «Espaces» series, 2002, p. 12.
7. Paul Nougé, «Aux écrivains publics et aux poètes poètes», in Au palais des images les spectres sont rois. Écrits anthumes 1922-1967, Paris, Allia publications, 2017, p. 210 (our translation). The French text: «aux / écrivainspublics / etaux / poètespoètes / À / l’expan-sion / À / la Manie / À / laconfidence / À / lavanité / À / lacandeur / auxprophètes / co MM eauxvirtuoses / rappelonssansnouslasser / que / l’expérience continue».
8. Jan Baetens, Hotel H, in Ici, mais plus maintenant, Brussels, Les Impressions nouvelles publications, 2019, p. 97.
9. Although originated from the United States of America, Nathaniel Rudavsky-Brody writes in French and publishes in Belgian publishing houses, a unique case in the literary landscape of the “Flat Country”, which justifies his presence in the present anthology.
10. Antoine Waters refused to participate in the anthology, considering that his poetic career has definitively given way to fiction. Nevertheless, his lyrical work holds an important place in this new generation.
11. Sotiris G. Tsampiras, Anthology of Contemporary French-speaking Belgian Poets, Athens, Prosperos, 1991.
12. Châtelineau, published by Le Taillis Pré, 2009. Since 2020, Yves Namur is the lifelong secretary of the Royal Belgian Academy of French Language and Literature.
13. Michel Cazenave (ed.), Encyclopédie des symboles, Paris, La Pochothèque / Le Livre de poche publications, «Encyclopédies d’aujourd’hui», 1996, p. 443.
14. Ibid., p. 443
15. Poem «Jeunesse», from the Illuminations, by Arthur Rimbaud, Œuvres complètes, edited and commented by Professor Pierre Brunel, Paris, La Pochothèque / Le Livre de poche publications, «Classiques modernes» series, 1999, p. 495.
16. Marc Quaghebeur, «Belgique: un pays d’irréguliers du langage», in Árpád Vigh (ed.), L’identité culturelle dans les littératures de langue française, Paris-Petz, published by Agence de coopération culturelle et technique-Presses universitaires de Pécs, 1989, pp. 53-64.
17. Michèle Aquien, Dictionnaire de poétique, Paris, published by Le Livre de poche, 1993, p. 314. The French text: «des ensembles qui excèdent la mesure du vers, et peuvent même compter plusieurs lignes, jusqu’au paragraphe entier».
18. Henri Meschonnic, Critique du rythme. Anthropologie historique du langage, Lagras, Verdier publications, 1982, p. 304. The French text: «un blanc n’est pas de l’espace inséré dans le temps d’un texte. Il est un morceau de sa progression, la part visuelle du dire».
19. Michel Sandras, Lire le poème en prose, Paris, Dunod publications, «Lettres Sup / Lire series, 1995, p. 40. The French text: «des zones de silence, comme si le poète ne disait pas tout».
20. Michel Murat, Le Coup de dés de Mallarmé. Un recommencement de la poésie, Paris, Belin Publications, «L’extrême contemporain» series, 2005, p. 181. The French text: «des effets de rythme […] susceptibles d’être interprétés analogiquement comme des variations de vitesse, de densité ou d’intensité».
21. «Der schöne Bund vereint alle Künste. Sie neigen sich liebend zueinander, bereiten sich freudig zu festlichem Spiel!», excerpt from Richard Strauss’ Capricio, translated from French by Bernard Banoun, L’Avant-scène Opéra, issue 152, 1993, p. 91. Our translation into Greek.
22. Theodor W. Adorno, L’Art et les arts, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer publications, 2010 [1966], p. 43.
23. Paul Ricœur, Soi-même comme un autre, Paris, du Seuil publications «Points essais» series, 1990.
24. Odysseas Elytis, En Lefko, Athens, Ikaros, 2006 [1992], pp. 207.
25. Odysseas Elytis, Poetry, Athens, Ikaros, 2005 [2002], p. 419
26. Mikaël Faujour, «Jean-Pierre Siméon : la poésie nous rapatrie. Trois questions à un acteur et défenseur de la poésie», Marianne magazine, interview published on August 23, 2020. Available at: <https://www.marianne.net/culture/jean-pierre-simeon-la-poesie-nous- rapatrie>.
27. This introduction was first written in French and will be published separately. Translated into Greek by Christos Nikou, who warmly thanks MX for the help).