mgv2_81 Transverser Issue | 07_15

mgv2_81 Transverser Issue | 07_15 edited by Peter O'Neill - 8€ (excluding shipping) from lulu.com

Contents

Cover art: CeeJay, © by Maelström Editions
Introduction by Peter O'Neill

CeeJay

Sommets – Summits
Jourdain de sang – The Bloody Jordan
Amours maghrébines – Love Under the Atlas
94. Chute libre – 94. Freefall
392. Parmi les prophétes – 392. Among the Prophets

Brigitte Dumas
Lignée 1 – Decendants 1

Peter O’ Neill
meters – Des mesures

Alain Lasverne
Enregistré Saoul – A Drunken Recording

Christophe Bregaint
Le jour soutiens la nuit – The day supports the night
Passé le champ de la desolation – Passing the field of desolation

Peter O'Neill
Res extensia

Christophe Bregaint
Tu peut effleurer – So you may brush until dawn

Brigitte Dumas
L’air, il est beau – It is beautiful Air

Jamila Abitar
A Marakeck, derrière la Koutoubia – Behind the Koutoubia, in Marakech

YOUNISOS
La Plénitude – Abundance

Jack Grady
La cuisine du diable – The Devil's Kitchen
Les cents pas – The Hundred Steps

Interview with Christophe Bregaint by Brigitte Dumas

Bombe voyage, bombe voyage – A Review by Peter O' Neill
L’oubli puissant habite sur ta bouche.
Baudelaire

Working on this 81st edition of mgversion2>datura has been such a journey of discovery for me, and I firstly wish to thank Walter for once again giving me the opportunity to reconnect with the French language, and so to be able to discover again the incredible writing which is currently being written today in French.

I had just finished transversing Baudelaire so the opportunity came at the perfect moment. I can see his influence here, which is wonderful to see. Sometimes explicitly, as in CeeJay's poem 'Chute libre', or 'Freefall', and sometimes less overtly. But his presence is never too far off. Nor is Rimbaud, or any of the other great late nineteenth century French writers, who were to have such a profound influence on not only French literature, but to writing and writers all around the world regardless of their culture or language. This is a great thing to see. For these writers were visionaries, interested in revolt. The writing here is similarly concerned.

It has been a great honour for me to get to know a little of their work here, and through the process of transversion share a little in their vision, share a little in their revolt – be it in Bruxelles, Paris, Marakech, Tangier, or here in Dublin.

The vision would appear to be all the one.

My deepest respect to all the writers who by sharing their work with me allowed me to journey a little with them.
Peter O' Neill
Skerries – June, 2015.


Note: To transverse: a term employed in an attempt to demarcate a possible third zone, somewhere between a translation and a version, where the idea of movement, traversing, and change, transgressing, are accentuated. A transverser then being someone occupied with such a process ; a play also on the French infinitive.