La France...

François Dufrêne
pastel on board, 2013
14" x 6"

Oh, the lure of poetry. Poetry may well be the greatest of all arts, one of the oldest too. To be a poet is like the most non-materialistic profession one can occupy. It's from the outset an ill fated profession, the work of a dreamer completely devoid of action. (And therefore it is the noblest of all professions). It is the art form that most defies all commodification, that defies all popularization, all establishment. There's no fame or glory in poetry. I always understood the nobleness of poetry, but I never understood poetry. I've always become extremely bored with poetry, never made it through a volume. But I tried. I always feel inadequate reading poetry, especially when reading poetry criticism. There's so much meaning in poetry that seems only to elude me. Yet, I've tried to write some, I've even published a few in a zine, but it's been an act of defiance; to make public the inadequacy of my intellect. François Dufrêne was a poet, a Lettrist poet, and a pioneer in the field of sound poetry. He was a painter too, known for his technique he called decollage. And he enters my top 100 (as a sound poet) for the fourth time.

Three portraits of Dufrêne. 2006, 2009, and 2010

Some of the poetry I wrote is in French. I don't know much French, just a few words, but not enough to understand the language, and certainly not enough to write in that language, but maybe just enough to write poetry. I figured that without the knowledge of a language I wouldn't have any of the blockage that I experience writing in a language that I do speak. What follows then is gibberish, unintelligible to French speakers, and an embarrassment to myself. It didn't keep me from writing nonsensical French poetry. I filled quite a few pages with it. The following is an outtake of a page-and-a-half that I wrote last week. It's the paragraph that contains an allusion to Dufrêne.

..........Du chien, du frene, du gratulin, comme c’est faire ne pas de rien. Oubliet con gavilette, dans le fete sans briolet. Un cri de loupe attender les filles de frere, mais l’ecole errants la sacre fleur. Nous sommes l’ete, hurlement le chaud temps, arrive tres atterdes. Oui, ma oeil savile huile, mais non, je fais les rouges.......