Friday, December 7, 2012

IN FAVOR OF INTOLERANCE

No word that I hate more than "Tolerance." It is the petit-bourgeois way of signifying to the "others" that they can exist in peace thanks to the great kindness of those in power, namely themselves. It is a mortal hypocrisy, that has kept women in the kitchen, gays in the closet , immigrants in the suburbs and anarchists in prison. The price for it is prodigious: if those in charge are tolerant with us, then, of course, it implies that we have to be tolerant with them. We have to accept - no, not only to "accept", but to "understand"- their atrocious way of living, their atrocious commercial music and culture, their conceited moralistic views, their ruthless defense of social inequalities (and the implicit racial, sexual or cultural inequalities hiding behind this)... So I deem myself completely intolerant here - I either love and accept, or laugh at and shrug off - when I don't plainly attack. I do not pretend to "understand" anything - hell, who can? - and I can't say I will empathize with you - but if I say you're allright in my book, then my house is open to you and we can share a good talk, and disagree in harmony. But if you dare "tolerate" me in yours, I will set fire to your sofa, kill your dog and give your children one of my books. This is the end of my Christmas message. 

Friday, November 30, 2012

A SMALL CIRCLE OF FRIENDS/UN PETIT CERCLE D'AMIS

I don't have many readers, but they mean the world to me. I am not complaining here, I am just stating two facts. Many writers mistake the number for the essence. The essence being not "how many" but "who." And here, I am very, very lucky - because I know some of them personally, because I exchange emails and thoughts with some I have never met, but who have reached out through Facebook or other social networks. I am not a sentimental type of guy, but I feel very, very lucky to have such good friends - because readers are friends. I know, I'm a reader too. And I wanted those who have the patience to bear with my stories and poems to know that to have two, three, four friendly companions around a small bonfire is better than talking alone to the stars. So, thank you.

Je n'ai pas beaucoup de lecteurs ou de lectrices, mais ils sont essentiels pour moi, Je ne me plains pas, je dis juste deux vérités. Beaucoup d'écrivains confondent le nombre avec l'essence. L'essence, ce n'est pas "Combien," c'est "Qui." Et lá, j'ai beaucoup, beaucoup de chance - parce que j'en connais certain(es) s personnellement, parce que j'échange des mails ou des idées avec ceux ou celles qui m'ont contacté sur le Net, via Facebook ou d'autres réseaux sociaux. Je ne suis pas un type sentimental, mais j'ai vraiment beaucoup de chance d'avoir des ami(e)s comme vous - parce que mes lecteurs et mes lectrices sont mes amis. je le sais, je suis moi aussi un lecteur. Et je voulais que ceux et celles qui ont la patience de lire mes romans ou mes poèmes qu'avoir deux, trois, quatre compagnon(nes)s autour d'un petit feu de bois est beaucoup mieux que de parler tout seul aux étoiles. Alors, encore une fois, merci.

(I should add my thanks to those who are usually forgotten by writers: my publishers. I have had many and never brought them any money. Some are probably still angry at me, but to them also, I want to say thanks for the confidence and the ride. It's been fun, even if we've ran out of gas. And to my current publishers: you know you're crazy, don't you?)

(Je me dois de remercier aussi ceux que les écrivains oublient souvent: mes éditeurs et éditrices. J'en ai eu un paquet et je ne leur ai jamais rapporté d'argent. Il y doit y en avoir qui m'en veulent toujours, mais je veux leur dire merci à eux et elles aussi, pour la confiance et pour le voyage. On s'est bien marrés, même si on est tombés en panne d'essence sur le bord de la route. Et à mes éditeurs et éditrices d'aujourd'hui: vous savez que vous êtes dingues, n'est-ce pas?)

Thursday, November 29, 2012

ON THE ILLUSION OF LANGUAGE IN POETRY

Language does not speak through you. You are your own language and what you speak is your other self - not the real one - the other one. Language therefore is only an illusion and should not be considered essential in poetry. What matters is its function and the way YOU assemble the pieces called words. The mechanic of language is simple, because its purpose is to mean. To mean is simple. Not to mean and yet to mean, that is where poetry begins. This is where you (the other you) gets behind the wheel and starts the engine.This is when trouble starts, when the engine purposedly stalls and you have to carry on on foot. This is not a metaphor, by the way, this is an image. When you write poetry, you literally walk on the uneven road of language. And if you want sense, you put up signs. If you don't want sense, you don't put up signs. You decide. Language doesn't. You are never spoken. You speak. The other speaks. You are responsible for him, though. Entirely responsible. And poetry has never been a part of language. Poetry is a tongue. Poetry is teeth. Language is gums. This is not a metaphor, this also an image. Language is nothing without tongue and teeth. Tongue and teeth are nothing without gums and mouth. And mouth is useless without the brain and the head. See? You are the brain and the head of the other. You are his mechanic. You are his poems, his own tongue bitten by his own teeth. Enjoy the taste of his blood, enjoy the song of his tongue. The scream is yours, though. All yours.

Friday, September 7, 2012

POETRY AND FICTION AS OBJECTS

I am more and more convinced that when we read, we read in 4 dimensions (or rather N dimensions, but let's make this easy), and that's why we have to consider the phenomenon of reading as quadri-dimensional (or N dimensional if we want to go quantum). To reduce poetry or fiction as mere "concepts" or "elements of our imagination" is the same as saying that living is breathing. Yes, but it is also much more than that, and if we want to apprehend what that "much more" is, we have to think in multiple dimensions and consider what we are reading (or seeing for that matter) as quantum objects, that exist in various states at the same time. Otherwise, one only sees one "side" of the object, and mistakes it for the whole. What's more these "objects" move in time, and so do we - both changing perspectives. That is why we can re-read texts we have already read and not recognize them. That is why, also, we can read ancient texts and find them new. "Modernity" Baudelaire said, "is surprise." Yes, absolutely. And this surprise comes from a shift of the object, or of the onlooker, or both. A question of perspective and the speed of light.

Saturday, August 4, 2012

ZE RADICAL WRITER

It's funny to be labeled, but it's even funnier to be self-labeled - and I chose the second solution. I wrote on some FB post that I was a "leftist's leftist,2 first as a midly provocative joke, then I realized how much that was connected with being a "writer's writer." Synchronicitically enough, the venerable radical underground paper International Times asked me for a small piece on this sntence, which was published on its site. Looking back, two weeks later, I feel very proud of being categorized - or rather categorizing myself - as a "radical" writer - not because of the romantic delusion of the upcoming revolution - there will be one, of course, but I will probably have nothing to do with it - but because I suddenly realize how much "Committed Literature" or "Littérature Engagée" has disappeared from the shelves since the Berlin Wall has fallen. A few movie directors still, but that's basically it. At least in the Euramarican world we're living in. So I am proud of the label. Very, very proud.

Here are the links to the piece and to an excerpt of "The Song of Synth," my very radical novel published by PS Publishing in the UK, along with "Asinth" - I put the link too, so you can read what they're about and feel very radical too:

Tuesday, March 13, 2012


I am not a patient man. Not at all. And yet. If I had known, when I began working on the Trilogy in 1991 that it would take two Gulf wars, 9/11, a global economic crisis and a few royal weddings for this novel to be published, I might have never written it... Looking back at the genesis of this book, at my anger and rage I felt at our media-addicted democratures when the whole Bush/Saddam madness began, at my disgust towards the use of "moral values" to defend global exploitation, at my amazement that winning at the Lottery had become the only way for climbing up the social ladder, I realize that not much has changed since then. I had written this novel in a revolutionary perspective, as an act of rebellion against the comfort of thinking - left and right - and the general "freedom" lie. I would still write it exactly the same way today, not changing a single word of it. Like I said, I am not a patient man. But one has to accept that change can come slow. Too slow? Never -never too slow, as long as it comes. This novel believes in change. Big changes. Radical changes. Like becoming a dog, a fish and a bird. Yeah, like I said - radical.

If you believe in changes too and are as impatient as I am, you can pre-order the book at Black Coffee Press through this link -or wait until it is available, if you're as patient as Buddha:





Thursday, February 9, 2012

My first translation of Baudelaire

I am currently working on a small essay on Baudelaire and Giorgione, based on a comparison between La Tempesta and "Correspondances". I am writing it in English, and I needed to find a translatiuon of Baudelaire that worked with my reading of it. I didn't. Not that the other existing translations are bad, but I didn't feel they conveyed Baudelaire's verses to their full extent. So here is my modest contribution - I hope you'll find it enjoyable.

Correspondences

Nature is a temple where living pillars
Sometimes let out estranged words;
Man passes amidst forests of symbols
Which gaze at him knowingly.

Like long echoes that from afar mingle
In a deep and dark unity,
Vast like the night and the day,
Perfumes, colors and sounds reverberate.

Some perfumes are fresh like the flesh of children,
Soft as oboes, green as pastures,
-while others, corrupt, rich and overwhelming,

Expanding like all things infinite,
Such as amber, musk, benzoin and incense,
Sing the exaltation of spirit and senses.