Je rame

Poesia di Henri Michaux
A poem by Henri Michaux
Musica di Diamanda Galás
Music by Diamanda Galás
Album: Defixiones Will and Testament










Henri Michaux (Namur, 24 maggio 1899 – Parigi, 19 ottobre 1984) è stato uno scrittore, poeta e pittore belga naturalizzato francese nel 1955. La sua opera è spesso posta in relazione con la corrente surrealista sebbene, tuttavia, egli non abbia mai fatto parte del movimento. Michaux trascorre la sua infanzia in un'agiata famiglia di fabbricanti di cappelli, a Bruxelles, in via Defacqz n° 69. Dopo un periodo trascorso in un pensionato della regione di Anversa, prosegue i suoi studi presso il Collège Saint-Michel dove, tra i suoi compagni, figura il futuro poeta Geo Norge. Adolescente angosciato, le sue prime esperienze letterarie sono segnate dalla lettura di Tolstoj e Dostoevskij. Anche se legge molto, nei suoi iniziali studi presso i Gesuiti non si orienta verso ambiti letterari, ma verso la medicina, che abbandonerà abbastanza presto per imbarcarsi come marinaio nella Marina militare. Naviga nel 1920 e 1921 ma è poi costretto a sbarcare quando la sua nave viene disarmata. All'incirca nella stessa epoca, a spingerlo a scrivere è la lettura di Lautréamont. Il risultato sarà il Cas de Folie Circulaire del 1922, un primo testo che già rende un'idea di ciò che sarà il suo stile. In seguito gli scritti si succedono (Les rêves et la jambe nel 1923, Qui je fus nel 1927..) e gli stili si moltiplicano. Nel 1928 si stabilisce a Parigi, dirigendovi anche la rivista "Hermès". Nel 1929 ricomincia a viaggiare. Dal 1955 si dedicò alla sperimentazione degli allucinogeni, in particolare della mescalina. (it:wikipedia)

Henri Michaux (24 May 1899 – 19 October 1984) was a highly idiosyncratic Belgian-born poet, writer, and painter who wrote in French. He later took French citizenship. Michaux is best known for his esoteric books written in a highly accessible style, and his body of work includes poetry, travelogues, and art criticism. Michaux travelled widely, tried his hand at several careers, and experimented with drugs, the latter resulting in two of his most intriguing works, Miserable Miracle and The Major Ordeals of the Mind and the Countless Minor Ones. In 1930–1931, Henri Michaux visited Japan, China and India. The result of this trip is the book A Barbarian in Asia. Oriental culture became one of his biggest influences. The philosophy of Buddhism, and Oriental calligraphy, later became principal subjects of many of his poems and inspired many of his drawings. He also traveled to Africa and to the American continent, where he visited Ecuador and published the book Ecuador. His travels across the Americas finished in Brazil in 1939, and he stayed there for two years. Michaux is best known for his stories about Plume – "a peaceful man" - perhaps the most unenterprising hero in the history of literature, and his many misfortunes. All his writing is strange and original. As his translator put it in Darkness Moves, the most comprehensive Michaux anthology in English, his poems are "messages from his inner space." That space may be transformed by drugs as in Miserable Miracle or by terrifying vision, as in "Space of the Shadows" (in Darkness Moves) but the "messages" from it are always as clear and concrete as possible. Henri Michaux was also a highly original artist. His work is not quite figurative, but suggestive. The Museum of Modern Art in Paris and the Guggenheim Museum in New York both had major shows of his work in 1978. In 1955 he became a citizen of France, and he lived the rest of his life there along with his family. In 1965 he won the National Prize of Literature, which he refused to accept. (en:wikipedia)