Anthologist: Alix Parodi
Translator: Angeliki Dimouli
Preface: Sylviane Dupuis, Denise Mützenburg, Alix Parodi
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Vincent Yersin, Baptiste Gaillard, Méloé Gennai, Benjamin Jichlinski, Alexandre Caldara, Anaïs Carron, Odile Cornuz, Julien Maret, Linn Molineaux, Anne-Sophie Dubosson, Pierrine Poget, Renaud Rindlisbacher, Stéphanie de Roguin, Laurent Cennamo, Marina Skalova, Cléa Chopard.
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The boundaries of western French-speaking Switzerland are marked out by its lakes, the mountain range of the Alps and the Canton of Jura. It contains the monolingual cantons of Geneva, Vaud, Neuchâtel and Jura, along with the bilingual cantons of Fribourg and Valais. It is a land full of poetry. French has always been the dominant language, although people also spoke Romansh until fairly recently. This is the land that inspired poets such as Byron, William Wordsworth and Thomas Hardy; moreover, it is also famous for the foreign authors who have lived in these parts, such as Victor Hugo, Alphonse de Lamartin, Rainer Maria Rilke and Jorge Luis Borges, as well as for its native-born poets who later became French citizens, such as Blaise Cendrars or Philippe Jaccottet. According to Bertil Galland, French-speaking Swiss poets have every right to claim the principle of a “fundamental differentiation” for their poetry, which seeks to “overcome isolation without abandoning its innerness, which it also cherishes”.
At the dawn of the 21st century, French-speaking Switzerland, or Romandy as its inhabitants call it, is ripe with young poets. This anthology presents a sample, which, although not exhaustive, showcases several of the region’s greatest representatives.
Many of them have studied at the School of Arts or the University of Graphic Arts. At the same time, they are also actively engaged in plastic arts, performance arts, teaching, academia, travelling, and hold careers as versatile and award-winning creators.
The books of Alexandre Caldara make their readers think, and not without good reason: is “L’Émacie” (The Gaunt) a peculiar novel that navigates the boundaries between poetry and prose (which are becoming vaguer and vaguer over time)? Could it be that “Volubiles Nudités” (Voluble Nudities) form a burlesque tapestry, or do they actually narrate a story that cannot be told? Is “Peseux Patterson” a narrative produced by a rampant, quirky imagination, as stated in the presentation of the book? In his most recent book “Cabinet de Nébulosités” (Cabinet of Indefinitions), which is a dialogue with Sibylle Monney, the author himself states: “Much like the old scribblers, I blot sheets of paper on a roll, but in the 21st century, the basement-century, the rolls are made of a synthetic material similar to vinyl”. The scribbler is now replaced by a performer who mutters, grumbles and dances with words. In short, Alexandre Caldarra cannot be classified under any category of poets.
Anaïs Carron shows an interest for her fellow human beings, whom she constantly observes through their body, flesh and skin. She is astonished by the fact that although they are destined to die, they nevertheless live and are vibrant. Her texts transmit a great power and emanate strong scents. In “La Griffe” (The Seal), made of three parts – “Short news, Portraits, Episodes” – the recurring word that forms a basic pattern is the word “body”; at the same time, women are often not only those who speak, but also those who are described. Her poetic universe is in many instances esoteric and full of charming sensuality. Thus, in “My Body”, as woman says: “Men love the imperfections of my body. Their hands play with the downy hairs on my back, on my belly. They taste the salt from my skin, pull aside my hair from my blazing forehead. Their fingers visit the elevations of my flesh. They kiss the wrinkles on my eyes and the wounds adorning me”.
In the poetry of Laurent Cennamo, sometimes fully embracing prose and other times merely mimicking it, we come upon a multitude of familiar objects: children’s toys, white sheets, curtains… which form an inner geography around the Ego, a soothing, melancholic and sometimes fantastic geography. Besides unrecovered childhood, this poetry, which is often “on the verge of tears”, also revolves around the themes of the fundamental yet closed family hive and the relationship with the father – a painter who actually illustrated two of his son’s books, one of which is titled “Pierres que la mer a consumées” (Rocks consumed by the sea), with the subheading “Notes on the paintings of my father”. This is how the poem, in its turn, offers contemplations on the art of painting – by Paul Klee or Giorgio Morandi – and music…
Cléa Chopard utilizes all literary forms, which, in fact, she calls her “literary estate”. She is involved with écriture feminine, sometimes with humor, other times with harshness, and often uses her performances as a vehicle in order to bring, according to her desires, her “literary estate” within an unstable and restless environment and, depending on the setting, transform this estate into a page, book, sound or image. She ponders the relationship between nature, the body and knowledge. Botany and medicinal plants are a great source of inspiration for the writer; however, she is also interested in the history of decoration, female literary criticism, the problems of translation and the history of mental illnesses. In “Ancolie commune” (Common Columbine), Cléa Chopard emphasizes that “if poetry can take the concept of garden and transcribe it, this is because it multiplies points of view, literary resources of place and time, even languages – a place like Rousseau Park is as much a “written garden” as an occasion for written poetry on the subject of gardens”.
After a stint at the Royal Court Theatre of London and working for three years at a theatre in Lausanne, Odile Cornuz launched her writing career with “Terminus” (Terminal Station), a compilation of theatrical monologues, followed by a series of works for radio and theater. She is mainly interested in the human voice and pursues new ways and mechanisms for reading or performing. Her poetic prose retains a trace of the orality and scenic design of language. In 2019, she won the Auguste Bachelin Prize for “Ma Ralentie” (My Deceleration), a long digression in prose full of imagination, something between an exercise in admiration and reinvention based on Henri Michaux’s poem “La Ralentie”, which is used as starting point or source of writing.
In her poetry book “Pas le temps de courir” (No time for running), Stéphanie de Roguin presents her poems as musical score in four movements, or as a series of constellations. She begins with “Modern Life” in a variety of tempi: “Speed, excess, bulimia, oh!, frauds, shhh!, fear, web, adolescence, zombies, shadow or darkness, and then?”. She then continues with “White Night” or “White Nights” in plural, “Burn” and “There once existed”, some sort of symphony that starts with the verse “Boredom is the extinguishing of this incessant beam of illusions bringing hope” and ends with the verse “If I had done otherwise”. Here, language refers to a great puffing that reaches loss of breath, with very few punctuation marks. This is a completely contemporary form of writing, without ornaments and flourishes, with a syntax that goes off the rails, a course of life that asks itself: “Why build labyrinths when the road takes us straight ahead?”. Fear is dominant and we, much like zombies, “lose the concept of direction the form of the driver diverges the needle is seeded doubt increases insanity”. This is the path of a life pondering these “forgotten dreams clinging to the soul’s margins”. Her recently published sophomore poetry book is titled “Qu’importe le vent” (Who cares about the wind).
Anne-Sophie Dubosson, poet and traveler, rediscovers “momentary miracles” and, upon returning to her country, “a certain abandonment in nature and life”. She goes through phases of contemplation and introspection, seeking “something that is close to destitution” and, through her writing, copes with absence, the emotion it creates, and the difficulty with rediscovering meaning when returning to the roots, the inner anguish, the desire for the motherland and the trouble with remaining in it. The poet needs the mountains and waters of her country, the splendid and powerful nature and the language of its inhabitants. Her texts are simple and reflect the experience that emanates scents of earth and water, a magic, love. We are swept away by the music of words, “taking things as they come: I love this water this flooded field the tenderness of letting go there is this truth being made from this fluid living beauty our swamp the seizure of the rose tree bending like that cold wind in search of winter”.
Baptist Gaillard is equally good at working with materials and language. He examines the earth, nature without humans, changing and transforming along with the rhythm of natural reactions. He follows the rhythm of seasons and phenomena, which he describes as concentric circles, where nothing is created and nothing is lost… Always starting from the verb “exists”, he comes to conclusions and reformulates or adds yet another explanation. The material of his work is in a state of constant transformation; it evolves, severs itself, is transported, reorganized, separated and recomposed. His book “Un domain des corpuscules” (A domain of particles) brings us amidst awkward particles, in the miasma of muddy water, in oil, in the gutter, or in dust. No human presence exists. There is only a form of matter – plastic, tar, concrete – or objects – flaming barrel, photographs, cans of paint, refrigerated vegetables. Each poem – or each new page from that great poem labeled as book – appears as a new mass that is added to the whole. We are found among fragments of a disaster, and also in the places that will be used to create new things: “Succession of mounds and cavities in the path; destruction but also / progress. These are two horizons that coexist. / They could be the stage of rising, still / at the beginning, or in the final stage of dissolution. / Only for now, however, become all these seem to be in / suspension. In total stasis, everything is mingled”.
Méloé Gennai has a name balancing between melody and song arrangement. Gennai is a non-binary, transgender, militant poet, performer, actor and activist, who defends the right of people to be many things simultaneously, without labels. Gennai is a revolutionary both in life and in writing, whose origins from a family of mixed race and overall course of life led to the realization – from a very early age – of the lack of reason and humanity inherent in the system. Thus, Gennai studied subjects such as the remnants of slavery on the bodies of descendants of slaves, the deconstruction of military service, the visibility of gender, sexuality or power relations, the survival and radical treatment of self, the places in which individuals are capable of creating and the joy of existence and love. Gennai writes in English, German and French; the poetry produced is powerful, even violent at times, and Gennai frequently crushes hopes, while maintaining a humorous disposition as a weapon of choice. In the end, Gennai’s poetry is ambiguous and toying with sounds, repetitions and wordplays: “Oh how happy we will be in the age of pause the age of nothing the age without age without nothing”.
The poems of Benjamin Jichlinski bring Rilke and Dylan to mind. In “Cradle of Eve” and “Carefree furnaces”, his writing recalls Gérard de Nerval or the dark verses of Tristan Corbière. This kind of poetry is surprising for the onset of the 21st century. Jichlinski’s voice is unique, often strained, searching for and manifesting itself in each of his poetry books: “Butterfly of the day / the light surrounds me / But I chose to become nested / in darkness”. In his most recent book “Même les rochers se brisent” (Even the rocks break) – in which, as in his previous book, English switch places with French – the poet dreams of rediscovering a song: “… I shall return to our steps / and eat the small pebbles / I had sowed / on the way”. Even if the abyss and the night are threatening, “I cannot love as much as I hate / and I hate the madness / that slowly eats me”. He concludes with: “The rocks break / and become sand / The sand gathers / and builds rocks”.
Julien Maret is the most formalist and experimental poet in this anthology. Each of his books corresponds to a new language and form. His debut book is titled “Rengaine” (Chorus) – but in what sense? Is it repetition, ritornello, a form of raking up or a literary chorus? The poetry navigates dubiously the territories of metaphysical novel, lyrical narrative and song, while being constructed around three “words – pretexts”: tube, tubule, hole. It tells, with a dose of humor and parody, the story of a man who has fallen in a black hole, describing his existential flight. His sophomore book “Ameublement” (Furnishing), published in 2014, follows the unfolding of a memory that is created and invented. In the book he currently prepares, his poetry reminds that of Stéphane Mallarmé, dissolving in each page in the form of a constellation.
Linn Molineaux is a writer and artist. Her debut book “Regarde le bruit des montagnes” (Look at the noise of the mountains) is akin an extended song, full of melancholy and darkness, interrupted by double blank pages in colors ranging from black to white. She offers us views of nature and its secrets, its constantly revitalizing beauty, her strength where death is present, and “the grandeur of nature and Alps maybe allow us to grasp the immense absence”. Or even: “The weather today is incredible. Listen to the stream of the canal flowing incessantly, the song of certain birds, the rustling of insects and, from far away, the booming noise of the thunder and the waterfall. And, while there are so many noises, you hear the silence”.
The focus on lost childhood is common in both Pierrine Poget and Laurent Cennamo, who were both born in Geneva. Poget mentions that she began “writing incomprehensible things” and ended up “making phrases that no longer hide”. However, her poems demonstrate a remarkable obvious distancing, which, ever since her first poetry compilation, as if suggesting that it is necessary to hide behind words, is expressed through a frequent appeal to the third person, instead of the “I” adopted by most poets, or through the unanticipated use of past tense, even more so in points where instead of narration, we see a presentation of buried images in short poems. She is also distinguished for her reveries, her fragile sensitivity that goes from shyness to savagery and her masterful use of omission and density. In short, she builds an entire world. In her book “C’etait le mois de tailles” (It was the month of pruning), she states: “I look at you, I touch you, I am talking to you. / Each day I heal. / I hope for everything. / I have nothing”.
Marina Skalova and Odile Cornuz are both writers involved with playwriting. Skalova, who was born in Moscow and lived in Berlin before settling in Geneva, is also a poet and translator – unless we come to believe that, having been born and raised at the crossroads of many languages, she actually professes one single activity, that of translation. To prove this point, her debut poetry compilation “Atemnot (Souffle court)” (Shortness of breath) was published in a bilingual edition. Skalova finds bridges from one language to another through words that become echoes, are reflected in or transformed through poetry. “Uprooted”, yet full of branches, the “language-matryoshka doll” of the poet carries the experience of exile and the unexpected events of history, a fact that gives her the ability to identify with refugees, vagabonds and those have “sometimes nothing but / one / single shoe”.
Vincent Yersin is member of the AJAR team and claims the title of poet with his debut publication “Lettre de Motivation” (Letter of Motivation). This compilation of poems plays with the gaps and words that end up entering the pages, while looking back on the life and dreams of a young man who has travelled widely around the world. “I took everything, everything, and the entire world on myself”. Or even: “I assumed the obligation to put it all back in the world”. His poems and texts are short, and Yersin seems to be searching for a direct language, as less articulated as possible and at times provocative, a language that almost denies choosing between individuality and that which is common for all. He investigates linguistic acts and habits of everyday life with a sad humor and some romantic touches. His epigram about Jim Harrison maybe provides us with the key element for the origin of his work: “But common sense warns us by saying that when we publish, we unload a burden and offer it to someone else, whether pleasant or not”.
The sixteen poets featured in this anthology are all young, creative and represent the land of French-speaking Switzerland with which they are bound and from which, at the same time, they are drawn away, only to return renewed each and every time.
Sylviane Dupuis, Denise Mützenburg, Alix Parodi