Poésie érotique ?
Vous avez dit «Poésie érotique »?
J’y suis allée quasiment à reculons, à ce spectacle intitulé « Cultures Caraïbes », organisé par le CIDIHCA, ce dimanche 6 septembre 2009, à Montréal, et dans lequel on annonçait, entre autres choses, la « mise en lecture d’"Amours et Bagatelles", poésie et prose érotique avec Michèle Voltaire Marcelin ».
L’affiche, quoique fort intéressante (projection du film « Maestro Issa », de Frantz Voltaire; Haitian Jazz avec le guitariste Harold Faustin et la chanteuse Samina; le saxophoniste Buyu Ambroise, venu exprès de New York), m’inspirait une certaine réticence à cause de cette « mise en lecture » justement. N’étant pas friande de poésie et encore moins de lecture publique d’œuvres littéraires, fut-elle exécutée sur fond musical avec saxophone, batterie et guitare acoustique, je craignais de m’ennuyer.
Loin de là! J’en suis revenue non seulement enchantée, mais étonnée de constater que je pouvais me délecter de ce genre et de ce procédé littéraires sans voir le temps passer. Ce ne sont pas juste les mots et leur résonnance qui sont venus me chercher, mais toute la mise en scène et la façon artistique de les déclamer.
Drapée dans un beau décolleté noir, épaules complètement dénudées et avant-bras garnis de longs gants noirs, la belle Michèle nous a déversé, dans un décor de lumière tamisée et de musique douce, son flot d’émotions, de sensations, de confessions, de confidences, dans des mots qui accrochent, qui séduisent, qui envoûtent, qui font sourire et rêver. On aurait dit qu’elle nous jouait une scène d’amour torride. Une scène d’amour tout en métaphores, tout en mouvements gracieux, sans le moindre geste indécent, mais si convaincante que, la pénombre aidant, notre cerveau projetait devant nos yeux de voyeurs involontaires, des images de deux corps enlacés se livrant à des ébats passionnés. Des mots crus, parfois, sans fausse pudeur, sans détours, sans artifices superflus, sans vulgarité non plus. Des mots puissants, bien à propos, savamment appuyés et lancés au bon moment, sur un ton juste, ni trop aigu, ni trop brusque, ni trop bas, ni trop haut. Ils sont bien choisis et réussissent à nous transporter hors de la salle jusqu’à cette chambre où nous assistons pas à pas, le souffle suspendu, aux différentes étapes de l’acte, des préliminaires jusqu’à l’explosion finale. De l’érotisme à l’état pur. Percutant, efficace! C’est cela que Michèle Voltaire Marcelin nous a livré tout en sensualité, en féminité, en humour, en espièglerie, en… poésie. Si son recueil, “Amours et Bagatelles", dont les textes sont extraits, réussit à produire autant d’effet, quel plaisir ce sera de les lire et de les relire… seul(e) ou à deux!
Tandis que le trio de Buyu Ambroise nous fait patienter, l’auteure s’éclipse quelques minutes et revient dans une nouvelle tenue plus flamboyante. Robe rouge, fleur rouge à ses cheveux attachés, sandales rouges.
Elle déclame un texte en espagnol, dans un accent parfait, puis enchaîne avec la traduction française faite par Jean-Marie Bourjolly. Il s’agit des Secrets d’une danseuse de tango, de Graciela H. Lopez. Même intensité qu’auparavant, dans les émotions exprimées. Même plaisir à savourer cette mise en lecture qu’on aimerait voir s’éterniser. Hélas, c’est déjà fini.(……)
Les quelque deux cents personnes quittent la salle satisfaits et l’on se dit qu’il est dommage de ne pas avoir plus de spectacles culturels de ce genre dans notre communauté.
Myrtelle Devilmé
Article paru dans “Le Nouvelliste" et “Ticket Magazine" (Septembre 2009)
Michele Voltaire Marcelin
“Amours et Bagatelles"
Textes en prose et poésie publiés par les Editions Cidihca (2009)
revelations
“My first memory of Texas is being glued to my mother’s hip as we thrashed through the terrain looking for a place to call home. We never had a place, a house of our own. When I say ‘thrashed through the terrain,’ I mean branches slashing against a child’s body that is glued to his mother’s body as they walk through the mud in bare feet, going from one place to another. I’m talking about Texas mornings when the dew was lost in a hug of nothingness. Where one wants to be someplace and he’s not there and there is no father. I’m talking about living with aunts, cousins, and grandparents and not truly belonging anywhere. My deepest memories are of a place called Rogers, Texas, where my mother and I rented a house with no furniture. In Rogers there was a church where the gospel was preached. It was the center of my community. The church was always very important, very theatrical, and very intense. The life that went on there and the music made a great impression on me. At a church in Cameron, when I was about nine, I watched a procession of people, all in white, going down to a lake. The minister was baptizing everybody as the choir sang ‘Wade in the Water.’ After baptism we went into church where the minister’s wife was singing a soulful version of ‘I’ve Been ‘Buked, I’ve Been Scorned.’ The ladies had fans that they fluttered while talking and singing. All of this is in my ballet “Revelations”.”
Excerpts from “Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey”
“’Revelations’ began with the music. As early as I can remember I was enthralled by the music played and sung in the small black churches in every small Texas town my mother and I lived in. No matter where we were during those nomadic years Sunday was always a churchgoing day. There we would absorb some of the most glorious singing to be heard anywhere in the world.” – Alvin Ailey
And a glorious ballet it is, filled with songs of trouble and of love. I still remember the first time I saw the Alvin Ailey dancers. It was back in the ‘70s while I was still in college. The program ended – as Ailey programs often do – with the signature ballet “Revelations.” Up until that time, I had been impressed with the dancers’ dazzling technique – Ailey dancers have a way of making the most arduous moves seem graceful and effortless- but “Revelations” was something else. It was not just a dance, it was a lyrical poem, it was drama, it said things to you, and one of its most haunting dances “Sinner Man” , with a trio of male dancers charging across diagonal paths of light, criss-crossing the stage with high leaps, was filled with such fervor, such desperation and such yearning for deliverance, it brought tears to my eyes. I knew the song and although Ailey uses the traditional version of this spiritual, I could not help thinking of the Nina Simone interpretation.
“Oh, sinner man, where you gonna run to?
Oh, sinner man, where you gonna run to all on that day?
Run to the moon, “Moon won’t you hide me?”
Run to the sea, “Sea won’t you hide me?”
Run to the sun, “Sun won’t you hide me all on that day?”
Lord says, “Sinner man, the moon’ll be a bleeding.”
Lord says, “Sinner man, the sea’ll be a sinking.”
Lord says, “Sinner man, the sun’ll be a freezin’ all on that day!”
So I run to the Lord “Please help me Lord”
Don’t you see me praying. Don’t you see me down here praying?”
But the Lord said “Go to the devil!”
The Lord said “Go to the devil
He said “Go to the devil all on that day !”
So I ran to the devil; he was waiting
I ran to the devil, he was waiting
I ran to the devil. He was waiting
All on that day!”
The song, used in revival meetings to help people confess their sins, is based on a prophecy recorded shortly after Jesus’ death and resurrection, which gives a detailed picture of his promise of judgment on earth. It is found in the last ‘book’ in the Bible and is titled “Revelation”. These verses relate to sinners seeking refuge in the rocks:
“Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of Jesus, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”
“Revelations” is a classic and Ailey fans pride themselves on how often they have seen the ballet performed. Wild applause inevitably greets the dance and there is as much outpouring of love from the audience as there was of Ailey’s heart and soul in composing this piece. At last Saturday’s matinee at the BAM, I remember the audience swaying as one and clapping to the finale, “Rocka My Soul in the Bosom of Abraham” and I remember walking out uplifted, a better “me” than had walked into the theater earlier.
There is a reason for the ritualistic love “Revelations” inspires in contrast to other pieces in the program. ” Suite Otis”, an homage to Redding, a delightful piece of fluff with colorful costumes (apart from“Satisfaction”, I’m not a Redding fan and lack the esthetic sensibility to appreciate all these shades of pink on male dancers shaking their booties) is a series of sexy playful vignettes of couples in various stages of their relationships, and the curtain raiser “Hymn”, a Jamison and Deavere Smith collaboration which combined ballet, jazz and swing is an energetic tribute to Ailey himself . The work begins with a voice-over by Ailey, discussing his artistic beginnings, from his “blood memories” of growing up in Texas and continues with footage of interviews and rehearsals with the legendary choreographer with the equally legendary Carmen de Lavallade and Judith Jamison . There were some memorable moments – “Mask” uses a female dancer and Deavere Smith’s voice recording to explain how difficult it is to show one’s vulnerabilities and live without a mask in modern American society, but it is clearly “Revelations” – emotionally multilayered , textured and powerful- that capture Ailey’s poetic style.
I remember reading a comment somewhere that he would never do anything else like it. He didn’t have to. With its exuberant music, the soaring emotional intensity of its dancers and the clarity and elegance of its choreography, “Revelations” is Ailey’s gift to us. Impervious to time and fashion, it stands alone and keeps enriching us over the years.
Michele Voltaire Marcelin
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the corridors of power
“Richard the III, an Arab tragedy”, an exciting adaptation of Shakespeare’s play, opens with a monologue by Queen Margaret who introduces herself with these words:
“I am Margaret. It is your right to ignore me. I would ignore myself if I could but my history will not allow me. We lost. I don’t want your reconstruction grants, your loans, your pity. I just ask of you not to question my thirst for revenge.”
With this proclamation of revenge, Sulayman Al Bassam leads us through a labyrinth of intrigue, manipulation, violence, and blood letting. So much blood in fact that Richard himself comments on it:
“I am in so far in blood, that sin will pluck on sin;”
Serendipity led me to this brilliant production, the work of young Kuwaiti playwright, actor and director Sulayman Al Bassam (he’s only 36) at the BAM’s Harvey Theater last week. Had I not accidentally lifted my eyes to see the sign on the BAM’s marquee while hurriedly walking to an appointment, I would have missed its short run.
Shakespeare’s Richard was set in medieval England at the time of dynastic struggles whereas Al Bassam has staged his in an oil-rich contemporary royal court in the Arabian gulf with tribal factions competing for political power, but both the original play and the Arabic version tell the story of the murderously scheming character who to guarantee his succession to the throne, callously executes family, friends, subjects, and all who stand in his way.
At the very beginning of the play, Richard who describes himself as “rudely stamp’d, deformed, and unfinish’d”, officially announces his intention for revenge with this outcast’s credo:
And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,
To entertain these fair well-spoken days,
I am determined to prove a villain.”
From that time on, we follow him as he gives orders to murder his brother Clarence, the young princes he is ‘protecting’, his closest ally (the powerful Buckingham who is secretly serving the interests of the West); even his wife Anne, whom he poisons to clear the way for a marriage with his niece, the young princess Elizabeth (an alliance which will consolidate his political base).
This Richard is not Shakespeare’s ugly hunchback. There are subtle signs of the physical “deformation” he speaks of when describing himself: he wears a neck brace under his soldier’s uniform; a waist support – some kind of athletic girdle over the traditional Arab outfit he wears once-, but he is still the perverse, ambitious and sardonic villain one would love to play on stage. I fought my best friend from college for the part and lost - Fracaswell Hyman, a reputed playwright and director who also attended the Leonard Davis Center for Performing Arts, played Richard to my Anne. My consolation? the succulent invectives the widow Anne hurled at the assassin. At the end of the play, Richard finds himself alone on the battlefield surrounded by the ghosts of those whose deaths he has caused. Amidst the rousing propulsive sounds of the music onstage, he dies, uttering: “A horse, a horse, my kingdom for a horse! “
This highly stylized production has some unforgettable scenes:
Margaret, the vanquished queen, carries a battered suitcase everywhere – it is the symbol of her lost power; her displacement, her exile. At the height of her anger, she opens the suitcase to fling her late husband’s bloodied clothing at her adversaries as she curses them with afflictions and calamities.
At the funeral of Anne’s husband, a shameless Richard disguises himself with a woman’s traditional mourning veil and joins the grieving procession. It is a high comedic moment: Richard courts the bereaved widow while sitting on the casket. His aide, Catesby, uses a stick to beat the curious women who attempt to approach the couple.
My favorite scene was the chilling murder of Clarence. Clarence walks toward the audience holding a suitcase; the bare stage is illuminated by lit opaque panels that reflect moving water. He opens the suitcase downstage and we notice it is filled with water; as he is engaged in ritual cleansing before praying, a hired assassin stealthily approaches him and forcibly drowns him despite Clarence’s entreaties.
I had of course seen Laurence Olivier’s Richard and I also enjoyed the film version with Ian McKellen, but this is by far my favorite adaptation. I have always felt that art that moves you and makes you want to participate has reached its objective. In this case, the many times I wanted to jump onstage is testimony enough. I did not want this play to end and I wanted to be a part of it. I do feel Mr. Kazak played Richard with a few too many winks at the audience and I wished he had been less flamboyant but Amal Omran’s Margaret was near perfect in her grief superseded by anger as was the melange of joviality and duplicity of Catesby, as played by Monadhil Daod.
Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company who asked Al Bassam to create an Arabic reworking of the original drama for their complete works festival in Stratford-on-Avon in 2007, the play with actors from Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Kuwait, has toured the world, visiting countries as diverse as France, Greece, China, Holland, and the United States, where it has just celebrated its North American debut at the Kennedy Centre in Washington and finally at the BAM’s Harvey Theater in Brooklyn.
Scored by live musicians, the production also offered large screens above the stage with English titles for the non-Arabic speaking audience, but it did not seem that language was a barrier to understanding the machinations of the play. When I asked the friend who accompanied me if it had been difficult to follow the plot, he answered it seemed to be “politics as usual in the corridors of power.”
Michele Voltaire Marcelin
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the silk road
There are phrases so evocative, they summon entire worlds and journeys, real or imagined . Silk Road is such a name. Conjuring visions of caravans passing across timeless deserts and oasis towns; of camels laden with bales of multicolored silks and sumptuous brocades, of handsome turbanned men with smoldering eyes carrying rubies and pearls, clusters of golden dates, saffron powder and pistachio nuts from Persia, glass bottles from Egypt, aloes, sandalwood, and all the perfumes of Arabia … The Silk Road: distance and movement; music and the noise of the crowd…
The romance of the Silk Road can be traced to Marco Polo. The Venetian explorer was only 17 years old when he started his travels to China along the ancient Silk Road. What he saw was beyond anything he could have imagined. He returned home with many treasures, the most amazing of which were his stories. “The Man of a Thousand Stories” describes the route from Baghdad to China, conveying a sense of wonder and enthusiasm for the new world he came across in which “everything is different”. The explorer had a poetic soul; listen how he describes the monsoon:
“I must tell you that it takes a full year to complete the voyage, setting out in winter and returning in summer. For only two winds blow in these seas, one that wafts them out and one that brings them back; and the former blows in winter, the latter in summer.”
As he recounts the crossing of the desert, one wants to have been there, to have listened to him:
“When a man is riding through this desert by night and for some reason -falling asleep or anything else -he gets separated from his companions and wants to rejoin them, he hears spirit voices talking to him as if they were his companions, sometimes even calling him by name. Often these voices lure him away from the path and he never finds it again, and many travelers have got lost and died because of this. Sometimes in the night travelers hear a noise like the clatter of a great company of riders away from the road; if they believe that these are some of their own company and head for the noise, they find themselves in deep trouble when daylight comes and they realize their mistake. There were some who, in crossing the desert, have seen a host of men coming towards them and, suspecting that they were robbers, returning, they have gone hopelessly astray….Even by daylight men hear these spirit voices, and often you fancy you are listening to the strains of many instruments, especially drums, and the clash of arms. For this reason bands of travelers make a point of keeping very close together. Before they go to sleep they set up a sign pointing in the direction in which they have to travel, and round the necks of all their beasts they fasten little bells, so that by listening to the sound they may prevent them from straying off the path.”
Marco Polo, Travels
Being the romantic I am, it is therefore no surprise that I would have rushed to see The Silk Road Ensemble with Yo-Yo-Ma at Lincoln Center on Monday night. This musical collective comprised of about 60 musicians, composers, arrangers, visual artists and storytellers from various Eurasian cultures has a clearly defined ambition: to preserve the authenticity of their own musical heritage and explore its repercussions on present culture while continuously search for points of contact with classical music.
The evening began with bamboo flutists sauntering on either side of the audience and a Korean drum on stage, continuing later on with musicians scattered around the performing space, blowing into conch shells. Conch shells…. Our maroons blew into them : the piercing blast of a blown conch shell summoned runaway slaves… Other memories flooded me: we would find these curved pink opaline beauties on the sand, and listen to the ocean entire by approaching one to our ear. And then the musicians played the Lebanese Arabian Waltz and through the generous exuberance of the music, I was transported back in time … trekking on a camel, making my way through sand storms in the desert, through ancient cities and places as high as the Great Wall, as infinite as the nine-thousand, nine-hundred and ninety-nine rooms hidden in the Forbidden City, as mysterious as the emperors’ tombs…
Throughout the evening, Yo-Yo-Ma, this superb cellist whose talent is matched by his simplicity, was just one of the musicians, mostly prompting other players into the spotlight while the public enjoyed this sublime fusion of jazz, Middle Eastern traditional music, and Western classical music.
Michele Voltaire Marcelin
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cahier spécial haïti
Comme le Mexique, Haïti est à l’honneur au Salon du Livre qui se déroule à Paris du 13 au 18 Mars 2009. La maison d’édition Le chasseur abstrait, connue pour son site Internet Revue d’Art et de Littérature, Musique publie le 8e numéro de ses “Cahiers de la RAL, M” consacré à la création littéraire et artistique d’Haïti: “Le Cahier Spécial Haïti”.
Cette anthologie de plus de 500 pages préfacée par l’écrivain franco-haïtien Jean Métellus regroupe trois générations d’artistes haïtiens: peintres, musiciens , romanciers ou poètes parmi lesquels Anthony Phelps, François Avin, Dominique Batraville, Frankétienne, Gary Klang, Jean Métellus, Michèle Voltaire Marcelin, James Noël, René Dépestre, Rodney Saint-Eloi, Stivenson Magloire, Syto Cavé…
“A sa manière, l’entreprise que réalise ce livre est plus qu’un dialogue, plus qu’un échange, c’est une communion, un repas pris en commun autour d’un seul et même menu : Haïti et l’amour, l’amour entre les êtres , l’amour de son pays d’origine.” écrit le romancier et poète Jean Métellus qui a reçu le 13 juin dernier en France l’insigne de Chevalier de la légion d’honneur. “Ce cahier se propose de donner une idée de la création artistique en Haïti après les années 1920. Malgré cette limitation, le projet paraît encore presque utopique, vu la richesse de la production littéraire et picturale dans ce pays depuis cette époque. Mais en segmentant l’histoire des réalisations artistiques et littéraires par générations d’âge, les concepteurs de ce document ont fait preuve de réalisme et d’efficacité, leur entreprise acquiert une véritable crédibilité et force l’admiration. Ce faisant ils instaurent un dialogue entre les générations: Génération 1, Années 20-40; Génération 2, années 50-60; Génération 3, Années 60-80. -” Jean Métellus
Lisez ici toute la préface. Lidous se fait le plaisir de vous livrer les pages dédiées aux écrits de Michèle Voltaire Marcelin. Vous n’avez qu’à cliquer sur ce lien-ci pour avoir le fichier en format pdf. Bonne lecture.
Commandez votre exemplaire du Cahier nº 8 – HAÏTI sur le site Amazon.fr
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haïti, holy republic of all attempts…
This bilingual piece, adapted from the play “Dialogue with my Double” and various poems by Carmelle St.Gérard Lopez is a patchwork of activist literature – where for an hour and a half, there is intense communication between the audience and the stage. Punctuated by songs composed and interpreted by Maryse Coulanges, the text explores the profound desperation of a small group of citizens who against all odds, imagine a country based on collaboration and civic duty. This performance in which the voice of the Colony of Saint-Domingue (Martina Bruno) and its double, The Republic of Haïti (Michele Voltaire Marcelin) are heard, provides a sample of the complete theatrical piece “Ras les Bornes/Borderline”.
Michele Voltaire Marcelin & Martina Bruno
The piece is an indictment against Haitians who spend their time waiting :” in endless inactivity; one intertwined hour after another while days go by, time flies by and they escape the truth.”
It is January 1st, 2004, the day of Haïti’s bicentennial, and the ancient colony of Saint-Domingue (Martina Bruno) has come to celebrate with her:
“Haïti! Haïti, Holy Republic of all attempts, I have come from afar in order to share with Thee, today’s celebration of your anniversary which is just as precious to me as it is to you, especially since the day I ceased to be and was reborn in you, to go on with my life through every heartbeat of yours.”
She is bewildered and outraged at the state of this present-day Haïti: a pauper, dressed in tattered rags and sequins -remnant of her past grandeur- emerging from a cardboard box, a kwi in hand (a kwi is a halved calabash, traditionally used by beggars asking for alms).
“What kind of celebration is this? What crime have you committed to deserve such a fate? Where are your children, heirs to valiant souls?” exclaims Saint-Domingue. With tremendous sadness, the Republic of Haïti (Michèle Voltaire Marcelin) declares:
“My children don’t have any roots. They are all gone; they’re here, there, somewhere. Some live elsewhere. Others remain here, strangers even to their own land. My children cannot hear or see anything. They say nothing – remain silent. They have become zombies. They wait for Papa Bon Dye, the Holy Virgin, the zémès, the saints, the lwas. They are waiting for the blessing: the sound of the boots of the former general’s (Rochambeau) brothers and cousins.”
Drowning in a pool of blood, amidst general indifference, Haïti is offered solace and comfort when Maryse Coulange’s comes towards her to sing poignantly: Pô djab pô sô (Poor sister):
It seems you’ve lost
your rosary’s cross
it seems you’ve mislaid
your prayers…
I want to cry and I can’t
Haïti I love you so much
Open your arms so rain can bless you…
The Finale, between Carmelle St.Gérard-Lopez (personifying the destructive forces plaguing the country) and Karnya Augustin (Haïti’s symbolic youth), is a choreographed sequence that shows “the withered space of a fragmented land” where life is:
agonizing
day is shortening
night is lengthening
time is never-ending…
Within a withered space
of a devastated land
death is looming
the ghost of nothingness
infiltrates the silence
of the Caribbean sea
exactly, where formerly
Haïti used to shine…
Although the piece explores past failures, it is ultimately hopeful, calling on all Haitians to help revive their country through love and engagement. The final admonishment on which the play ends : Sispann sa! (Stop this!) is said by Haïti herself as a last call for hope.
Michèle Voltaire Marcelin
At The Producer’s Club Theater in NYC, February 21st, 2009
Michèle Voltaire Marcelin as the Republic of Haiti
Michèle Voltaire Marcelin and Maryse Coulanges
Maryse Coulanges
Michele Voltaire Marcelin
Martina Bruno
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when god is too busy
God is too busy to rescue drowning children, too busy to stop the flow of blood, too busy to notice the suffering of Haiti, so Gina Athena Ulysse prays to other gods. From behind the curtain, before her entrance on the La Mama stage, she sings a Vodou song.
Ezili, save us as we are drowning she chants repeatedly as if in a trance, as if it were an incantation, as one endlessly says a rosary, and it is interminable this chant, as one says a rosary, Ezili, save us as we are drowning, because as one says a rosary endlessly, repeatedly, interminably, one keeps in memory events or mysteries in our history and it is true that we are drowning and it is true that we should be saved, Ezili, save us as we are drowning.
Weaving her powerful storypoems with these chants, Ulysse is ruthless, tender, sassy, and sometimes heartbreaking in her one-woman performance “Because When God is Too Busy: Haiti, Me and the World”. Whether exploring her rage at the dehumanization of Haitians: because they are too dark, too rebellious, not French enough, never, never, ever French enough…the ones Soeur Cecile called burnt potatoes and for whose salvation Ulysse prayed nightly Forgive her God for she does not know what she is doing, or reminiscing about spending the night on her knees, punished by her father and praying God whom she appointed as father, disowning her real father as Ponce Pilate, she sends us messages from the interior which are at once intimate and generously collective in a fascinating interplay that blurs the lines beween herself and her country:
Gede
Look what the mortals are doing to me
I planted corn
it turned into a reed
the reed turned into bamboo
it turned into a knife
to stab me…
Dear Gina, I don’t know you but you know me, you don’t know me but I know you, we have eaten the same yellow-fleshed almonds from the same almond trees, passed by the same gates where vines intertwine, I have knelt down to pray as you have and I have tried to imagine, imagine, imagine all the people…but it’s hard girl, isn’t it? with what is happening everywhere in these countries we love…But tonight you made it sweeter with your poetry and your fantastic talent and I thank you for it.
Michele Voltaire Marcelin
Ulysse was born in Petion-Ville, Haiti. An anthropologist by training, she is also a poet/performer and multi-media artist. When she is not expressing her rage, she is a professor at Wesleyan University.
Photography by Andy Vernon Jones
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Under A Certain Little Star
by Wislawa Szymborska
I apologize to coincidence for calling it necessity.
I apologize to necessity just in case I’m mistaken.
Let happiness be not angry if I take it as my own.
Let the dead not remember they scarcely smolder in my memory.
I apologize to time for the muchness of the world overlooked per second.
I apologize to old love for regarding the new as the first.
Forgive me far-off wars for bringing flowers home.
Forgive me open wounds for pricking my finger.
I apologize to those who cry out of the depths for the minuet record.
I apologize to people at railway stations for still sleeping at five in the morning.
Pardon me hounded hope for laughing now and again.
Pardon me deserts for not rushing up with a spoonful of water.
And you O falcon, the same these many years,in that same cage, forever staring motionless at the same spot, absolve me, even though you are but a stuffed bird.
I apologize to the tree cut down for four table legs.
I apologize to big questions for small answers.
Truth, do not pay me too much heed.
Solemnity, be magnanimous to me.
Endure, mystery of existence, that I might pluck out the threads from your veil.
Accuse me not O soul, of possessing you but seldom.
I apologize to everything that I cannot be everywhere.
I apologize to everyone that I cannot be every man and woman.
I know that as long as I live nothing can justify me, because I myself am an obstacle to myself.
Do not hold it against me, O speech, that I borrow weighty words,
and then later try hard to make them light.
Wislawa Szymborska
“For all their philosophical precision, intellectual playfulness, and emotional detachment, the poems of Wislawa Szymborska, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1996, are much more than thought experiments in verse. That “the unthinkable / can be thought” is for her the “miracle” of poetry. A wit rather than a sage, she proclaims nothing and dictates less, teasing the reader with unsettling queries and suggestive contrariness…”
Parnassus Poetry Review
Me, I love her wit, her caustic humor, I love even her pessismism. How do you not love a poet who gives such advice to aspiring poets?
“Let’s take the wings off and try writing on foot, shall we?”
and:
“If you want to become a decent cobbler, it’s not enough to enthuse over human feet. You have to know your leather, your tools, pick the right pattern, and so forth. . . . It holds true for artistic creation too.”
and:
“You need a new pen. The one you’re using makes a lot of mistakes. It must be foreign.”
and finally:
“It’s pleasant and rewarding to tell our acquaintances that the bardic spirit seized us on Friday at 2:45 p.m. and began whispering mysterious secrets in our ear with such ardor that we scarcely had time to take them down. But at home, behind closed doors, poets assiduously corrected, crossed out, and revised those otherworldly utterances. Spirits are fine and dandy, but even poetry has its prosaic side.”
Michele Voltaire Marcelin
Darwin, Lincoln and…Haiti?
“That there is suffering, no one will dispute it, but according to my judgment, happiness will decidedly prevail.” Darwin(according to Beaty)
“Four score and seven years ago, my heart began to break, and for a while, I did not know what it meant to be free.” Lincoln(according to Beaty)
Was there a relationship between Lincoln and Darwin? In the 19th century, both the scientist and the anti-slavery president were near-mythical figures. With the theory of evolution and the Civil War, each touched off a revolution that changed the world. Coincidentally (but do coincidences exist?) they shared a birthday. Last night, they also shared the stage of the Brooklyn Academy of Music for the premiere of Daniel Bernard Roumain’s Darwin’s Meditation for The People of Lincoln. In this piece, DBR – as he is professionally called- explores the relationship between Charles Darwin and Abraham Lincoln who were born within hours of one another on February 12, 1809 , yet never met during their lifetime. DBR’s musical score, an eclectic combination of tonal and dissonant orchestral music, Haitian Konpa, Soul, and Jazz music, incorporates an imagined conversation (written and performed by playwright Daniel Beaty) beween the two historical figures. Emotional suffering, freedom, and survival are the recurrent themes. Now, who are Lincoln’s people, and what is the Haitian connection? In his Gettysburg address, Lincoln vowed to struggle to ensure that “government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.” That’s the people part. The Haiti link seemed fragile- but an interview excerpt with the Haitian-American composer dissipated my ignorance: “Charles Darwin wrote and spoke about his admiration for Haitians and their fierce independence. Frederick Douglas, friend and confidant to Lincoln, was a special envoy to Haiti and wrote about that “sister republic” with great, but misguided, hope for pushing both countries closer together. Both men knew about Haiti and were well aware of that island nation’s successful revolution. I felt that by making Haiti a literal and figurative location in this piece, I could better understand Darwin’s and Lincoln’s view of the world, as they fought to understand their work, country, and their own place in history.”
So, Haiti became part of the piece.
Enlightened and in eager anticipation, I dressed in my finery to attend the performance. My disenchantment was at the measure of my expectations, I suppose. The quality of depth and rigor that would have made Darwin’s Meditation a classic, was missing. The piece lacked gravitas. But DRB is a star above all. The violinist/composer is enjoying considerable success these days, thanks to his unique, experimental fusion style. According to Sydney’s Time Out magazine: “Daniel Bernard Roumain has been accused of doing for violin what Jimi Hendrix did for electric guitar.”
It is true there is much jumping, dreads whirling in the air, and Hendrix-like antics onstage, and DRB’s enthusiasm is irrepressible – but its tonality is childlike in its innocence instead of being darkly sexual like Hendrix. His skilled solos are high pyrotechnics. He burns the violin, drawing out audacious sounds and chords and harmonies, and one is dazzled by his brilliance and yet, one remains curiously, emotionally disengaged.
The 90-minute quartet concerto, which took more than a year to complete, was commissioned by the Brooklyn Academy of Music. The composition of the work is said to be inspired and guided by a musical and historical exploration of Haiti. But the layers pertaining to the island nation do not seem sewn from the same cloth as the rest of the piece, and are like patches added to hold the fabric together (one such colorful patch is Billly the Barber, a Haitian musician who like Lincoln , played the harmonica, was Lincoln’s client when Lincoln was still a practicing lawyer and a pallbearer at the president’s funeral.) Haiti’s national anthem was the opening song , performed by singer/songwriter Emeline Michel (who sang several pieces in French and Creole throughout the evening). Daniel Beaty’s text was moving, and as a performer he has that quiet presence , a rare combination of sensitivity and power that can draw you in. The overall results could have been spellbinding had lyrical substance and narrative tension also been present, but the multi-media performance lacked cohesion, and after quickly making its point, seemed to drift and not know where to go. Or rather went all over the place. Text fragments were repeated and recombined like musical themes throughout the work; words from the recitation, and images representing the themes were projected on a screen behind the 20-piece string- dominated orchestra directed by Paul Haas. Now, will someone please explain why so many words in Creole were mispelled? Will someone please apologize? Could this ever have happened in any other language? And why was a traveling palm tree – not native to Haiti, chosen to illustrate the island? There were other seriously awkward moments. Why, oh why, would DBR in the middle of a piece that dealt with the somber themes of death and grief, suddenly call out to the audience “Hey BAM! How are you doing tonight?” and “Are you enjoying yourselves?” Why would the musicians in the orchestra have been directed to raise their fists – they did so half-heartedly- while echoing Beaty’s recitation of Haitian revolutionary slogans? United we stand? Liberty or death? Here and there, a couple of songs with appealing melodies and rhythm were sung by Emeline Michel. Although totally irrelevant to the thematic of the composition, they were lovely. She sang them with that throaty, mournful tone all her own, and that was possibly the most authentically Haitian part of the evening.
The orchestral score, played by SymphoNYC was conducted by Paul Haas. The soloists were Wynne Bennett, prepared piano; Haitian singer Emeline Michel; actor Daniel Beaty, speaking; and DBR on violin. Lighting design was by Matthew Richards and video design by Yuki Nakajima.
Known for fusing his classical music roots with a myriad of soundscapes, Haitian-American artist Daniel Bernard Roumain (DBR) has carved a reputation for himself as a passionately innovative composer, performer, violinist, and band leader. His exploration of musical rhythms and classically-driven sounds is peppered by his own cultural references and vibrant musical imagination. Roumain who holds a doctorate from the University of Michigan began performing professionally as a child and has worked with such diverse artists as Dizzy Gillespie and Two Live Crew, Bill T. Jones, Buglisi/Foreman Dance Company, and Coyote Dancers and has collaborated on new work with performance artist John Fleck, composer Philip Glass, and DJ Spooky.
Prior to the show at the BAM with Jane-Adrienne Charles-Voltaire
If your aesthetic sensibilities are attuned to the beauty of fading grandeur, you will love the crumbling and water stained interior of the Harvey. It is magic for the imagination.
Winner of the 1988 Architectural Theater Award, the Harvey (formerly the Majestic) is a self-contained venue located at 651 Fulton Street, with a capacity of 874 seats. Originally a traditional playhouse, housing Shakespearean revivals, vaudeville reviews, and musicals, the theater was converted into a movie house in 1942, only to be abandoned in 1968. This unique space was obtained in 1987 by BAM’s then-president Harvey Lichtenstein for the landmark production of Peter Brook’s The Mahabharata. Creatively renovated since, the Harvey’s interior lends a unique element to every performance on its inimitable stage.
Sources:
DRB interview with Robert Wood of the BAM’s Marketing Dept.
NY Times – Allan Kozinn
DBRmusic.com
Newswek-Malcom Jones
burning both ends
photo: meesta meesta
“My candle burns at both ends
It will not last the night
But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends
It gives a lovely light!”
Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950)
“I do not think there is a woman in whom the roots of passion shoot deeper than in me,” 20-year-old Millay wrote in her diary. “It seems to me that I am, incarnate, rapture and melancholy…. And what I have lived I have lived doubly, actually and symbolically.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
Independent, flamboyant Millay, led a notoriously Bohemian life. She and the other writers of Greenwich Village were, according to Millay herself, “very, very poor and very, very merry.” She lived in a nine-foot-wide attic writing tough-minded poems about sex, betrayal and the price of being a woman. This liberated woman of her times was in poetry, a traditionalist who absorbed influences from classical English poets and was devoted to the sonnet form. She was very popular and gave poetry readings to standing room only crowds. Even in the midst of The Great Depression, Vincent’s work sold by the thousands.
She wrote openly of her many affairs, her bisexuality, and her independence as a woman in her poetry. One can hear the permission given to women of the era to ignore gender boundaries in her sonnet, “I, Being Born a Woman and Distressed.”
-
- I BEING born a woman and distressed
- By all the needs and notions of my kind,
- Am urged by your propinquity to find
- Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
- To bear your body’s weight upon my breast,–
- So subtly is the fume of life designed,
- To clarify the pulse and cloud the mind
- And leave me once again undone, possessed.
- Think not for this, however,–the poor treason
- Of my stout blood against your staggering brain–
- I shall remember you with love, or season
- My scorn with pity; let me make it plain:
- I find this frenzy insufficient reason
- For conversation when we meet again.
- However, my favorite sonnet is the wistful “What lips my lips have kissed” about lost loves:
- What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply;
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in the winter stands a lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet know its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone;
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.
(Edna St. Vincent Millay)
3Penny Opera
In 1976, the year I started studying at the Aaron Davis Center for the Performing Arts, Joe Papp of the N.Y. Shakespeare Festival staged a revival of “Three Penny Opera” at the Beaumont. It featured Raul Julia as the murdering, whoring, Macheath, prince of thieves in stinking, corrupt London. I loved the play and had even chosen the “Ballad of Immoral Earnings” scene to present in class with my acting partner. I was therefore delirious with anticipation until the performance date and enthralled throughout. I fell in love with Raul Julia that night. I know, I know. It is rather embarrassing how susceptible to love I am. It is both a curse and a blessing if you ask me, but I would have had to be cast in stronger metal to resist Julia’s dark eyes, his deep voice and his charisma as Mack the Knife. It’s a dangerous thing when an actor can play a criminal in a manner so powerfully seductive that one is irredeemably attracted. He had, I remember, a certain roguish gesture with his white scarf – flinging it in an effortless elegance I tried to replicate after the play, succeeding only in temporarily blinding the actor friend who had accompanied me to Lincoln Center. As it took a very long time for me to stop re-enacting Julia’s move, my classmates, keenly interested in keeping their eyes intact, became skilled in recognizing the least indication of the scarf’s sudden shrug and giving me a wide berth. I also sang that tango ballad, off-key and without respite, until everyone in the theater program was thoroughly sickened of it and me, and an intervention was staged. It was unsuccessful. The ballad remains to this day, one of my favorites.
Raul Julia and Ellen Greene
‘
To sample this wonderfully dark play, click here on the Threepenny Opera website. The opening tango is the melody to which the nostalgic and completely politically incorrect lyrics of the “Ballad of Immoral Earnings” are set to music.
Raul Julia and Ellen Greene
When we set up together, I and she
I had the brains, and she supplied the breast
I saw her right, and she supported me -
A way of life then, if not quite the best.
And when a client came I’d climb out of our bed
And treat him nice, and go and have a drink instead.
When he paid up I would address him: Sir
Come any time you feel you fancy her.
That time’s gone past, but what would I not give
To see that whorehouse where we used to live?
That was the time, now very far away
He was so sweet he bashed me where it hurt.
And when the cash ran out the feathers really flew
He’d up and say: I’m going to pawn your skirt.
A skirt is nice, but no skirt is OK too.
He had his cheek, he kept me locked away all day
But came the night he brought acquaintances to play.
If I’d object he’d knock me headlong down the stairs
I had the bruises off and on for years.
That time’s gone past, but what would I not give
To see that whorehouse where we used to live?
That was a time now very far away
Not that our state seems much improved today
When afternoons were all I had for you
I told you she was generally booked up
(The night’s more normal, but daytime will do)
Once I was pregnant, so the doctor said
So we reversed positions on the bed
You thought your weight would make it premature
But in the end we flushed it down the sewer
That could not last, but what would I not give
To see that whorehouse where we used to live?
Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
“In these dark times, will there also be singing?
Yes, there will be singing. About these dark times.”
If someone is laughing
It only means, that he hasn’t yet
Heard the dreadful news.
To talk about trees is almost a crime,
Because it is simultaneously silence about so many atrocities!
(Brecht)
TGIF
Thank God It’s Friday because….
It’s live jazz night at Jazz966!
With jazz vocalist, Tulivu Donna Cumberbatch
And what were you doing on a Friday night that was better than listening to the Ray Abrams Big Band? In fact, when was the last time you listened to a big jazz band? (My last time was in New Orleans and even then, it was just 13 musicians – this one was a 17 piece band!)
Ray Abrams was a jazz and jump blues saxophonist who played with the likes of Dizzy Gillepsie and Andy Kirk. The band is comprised of five saxophones, four trumpets, three trombones, an upright bass, a drummer, a pianist and a vocalist. The musicians fed off each other’s individual performances and took hold of the audience with two sets of swing and jazz music.
Something of a living jazz history book that at times includes members from three different generations, the Ray Abrams Big band has survived the death of its leader in the 90’s and has carried on in his tradition, combining soulful blues soloing with modern jazz elements and a trombone section to die for ( the moaning and wailing of sliding trombones elicit the same sounds from me…)
Band leader Don Eccles pays a mean sax but woos the audience with celebratory love songs.
Jazz pianist Dotti Anita Taylor is also a flutist, a vocalist and a poet. I was blown away by her generous spirit.
Taylor on the Yamaha grand
Sultry voiced Tulivu embraced the room with her swinging vocals and brazilian love ballads. She delighted the audience when she converted “The Man from Ipanema” into “The Man from Brooklyn” which became a catalyst for couples to jump up and dance.
Barbara of the happy feet!
An ageless Friday regular who celebrates her birthday every day, and never misses a beat, Barbara was a Savoy dancer who is still the most graceful, the most easily sensual woman on the dance floor.
This was a delightfully blessed Friday evening filled with music and spirit and love. If music quality is more important to you than fancy drinks and surroundings, I am hoping you also will become Friday regulars at Jazz966.
Turns out there’s live jazz in our ‘hood every friday night!
Jazz966 remains one of the few places left in Brooklyn where quality jazz can still be heard without emptying your wallet. For the last 18 years, Sam Pinn, chairman of the club, has been true to his mission: “We try to be a place that keeps the music alive.”
Housed in a community center, Jazz966 offers live jazz music every Friday night for a minimal cover charge.
Jazz966 at 966 Fulton Street
718 638-6910
Paroles de femme…
Jeanie Bogart
Mwen ekri, m-ekri, m-ekri
……………………………………….
emosyon mwen sou papye
bèl pawòl literati
bèl chema fe klenklen
(J’écris, j’écris, j’écris… mes emotions sur le papier, de belles paroles de litérature, de beaux schémas clinquants..)
Jou m-kontre’w cheri
tout ti mo dous krase rak
plim mwen tranble, krache, vomi
tout chema tounen madigriji
m-bliye konte, m-bliye pale
je’m nan je’w
menm nan men’w
se sèl verite
(Le jour de notre rencontre chéri, tous ces mots doux se sont évadés, ma plume a tremblé, craché, vomi, tous ces schémas sont devenus scribouillis, j’ai oublié comment compter, comment parler, mes yeux dans les tiens, ma main dans la tienne sont la seule vérité)
Pour Jeanie, Prévert a été une révélation; ses poèmes en prose ont changé sa vision de l’art poétique. “C’est en écoutant des textes de Jacques Prévert que j’ai peaufiné mon style. Finis les quatrains, les vers rimés…. ”
” Mon cœur est finalement mort de tromperies, de trop de mensonges, de trop d’espoirs bafoués. Mon cœur est mort d’une overdose d’espoir “.
Paru au début du mois de septembre aux éditions Sociétés Paroles (Montréal), ce recueil réunit des textes écrits en prose autour de divers thèmes allant de la solitude à l’amour en passant par l’errance. Jeanie a commencé à écrire dès l’âge de quatorze ans. ” À la maison, j’aimais lire. Je n’aimais pas beaucoup parler. C’est le papier qui, plus tard, deviendra mon confident. J’avais par la suite reçu plusieurs invitations à publier. Mais, j’étais très timide à l’époque, je voulais plutôt vivre et écrire tout simplement. Publier était secondaire” , raconte-t-elle.
Francesca André et Michèle Voltaire Marcelin ont dit les poèmes de Jeanie
Nou apiye koud pou koud
sou yon tab ki pòtre yon kalvè
Avec le poète Frantz Benjamin de Montréal
Avec Jeanie, Jean Béliard Lucien et le docteur Frantz Antoine Leconte qui a présenté Jeanie et sa poésie au public.
|
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
After Love
After you left me
I had a bloodhound sniff at
my chest and my belly.
Let it fill its nostrils
and set out to find you.
I hope it will find you
and rip your lover’s balls to shreds
and bite off his cock – or at least
bring me one of your stockings
between its teeth.
Yehuda Amichai
Referring to him as "the great Israeli poet,"Jonathan Wilson of The New York Times wrote that he "is one of very few contemporary poets to have reached a broad cross-section without compromising his art." He was loved by his readers worldwide (his poems have been translated into more than 30 languages) It is not hard to see why. Amichai’s poems are easy on the surface and yet profound:humorous, ironic and yet full of passion, allusive but accessible, charged with metaphor and yet remarkably concrete. Most of all, they are, like the speaking persona in his Letter of Recommendation, full of love: Oh, touch me, touch me, you good woman!This is not a scar you feel under my shirt. It is a letter of recommendation, folded,from my father: ‘He is still a good boy and full of love.’
A man doesn’t have time in his life to have time for everything. He doesn’t have seasons enough to have a season for every purpose. Ecclesiastes was wrong about that. A man needs to love and to hate at the same moment, to laugh and cry with the same eyes, with the same hands to throw stones and to gather them, to make love in war and war in love. And to hate and forgive and remember and forget, to arrange and confuse, to eat and to digest what history takes years and years to do. A man doesn’t have time. When he loses he seeks, when he finds he forgets, when he forgets he loves,when he loves he begins to forget. And his soul is seasoned, his soul is very professional. Only his body remains forever an amateur. It tries and it misses, gets muddled, doesn’t learn a thing, drunk and blind in its pleasures and its pains. He will die as figs die in autumn, shriveled and full of himself and sweet, the leaves growing dry on the ground, the bare branches pointing to the place where there’s time for everything. Yehuda Amichai
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite
Good Fortune!
Stereophile magazine
You and the Night, Sonny…You and your alto sax and your music in the night at Jazz 966!
Back in the 1970’s, when we were bright young things spending our nights in jazz clubs clouded with cigarette smoke, nursing cheap drinks through the sets, I remember many memorable performances by the Sonny Fortune Quartet at the Village Vanguard and at Sweet Basil, on Seventh Avenue with Ernie, Buyu, Yolene and Alex. 
Thirty years later, Cornelius “Sonny” Fortune (who turned 69 this May) is at his fiery best, blowing that saxophone with the same intensity and sincerity, and his bursting ripe tone and bold phrasing still enflames listeners, bringing them out of their chairs in exhilaration to dance in tune with the music.
Last night at Jazz 966, the atmosphere was joyful, with hard-core jazz lovers in attendance, revelling in the moment. Many are Sonny’s age and have supported his music since he started performing. Sonny knows it: when one audience member tells him she can’t come see him play in the city, he responds: And that’s why I come to you! There is easy banter and mutual love here, and the joie-de-vivre is contagious!
He starts the evening with mellow tunes. The appreciation of the audience is evident every moment of the performance: aficionados murmur knowingly; they call out a couple of “Hey, Sonny!” and the applause is generous. Once he plays Moonlight Serenade, couples form on the dance floor and by the time he segues into Take the A train, I have been whisked away myself by a rather dapper gentleman, and it’s an amazing experience to be dancing two steps away from Sonny Fortune as he blows his alto sax. To close the set, he plays Caravan, a song I am particularly fond of. It is a powerful performance, gushing with energy and passion: the music building in intensity and urgency, in volume and rhythmic drive; moment to moment, more riveting, ending the evening on a perfect high note!
“Fortune ought to be a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master.” - Nat Hentoff – Jazztimes
Sonny Fortune, (born in Philadelphia in 1939) 
was 18 when he decided to pursue a career in jazz. The quiet, straight-talking musician explained his 1967 move to New York: “Eventually, in order to find out if you really have what it takes, you have to go to the center, and that’s New York…you can only do so much in your hometown.”
Touring around the world and leading his own quartet formed in 1975 , Sonny, accomplished on several instruments (clarinet, flute, alto, tenor and baritone sax included), has also played and recorded extensively with such greats as Miles Davis, Dizzy Gillespie, Mongo Santa Maria, Oliver Nelson, George Benson and Nat Adderly. He’s also played with two musicians of the classic John Coltrane Quartet: Elvin Jones and McCoy Tyner. Although he only played with John Coltrane once, Trane exerted a profound infuence. This connection was explicit not only on his 2000 recording In the Spirit of John Coltrane, but in almost every note he’s played since that encounter. On Continuum, Fortune’s first album for his new Sound Reason imprint, his music continues to evoke the passion, commitment, and integrity of his mentor.
Critics speak of Sonny Fortune in the same breath as Coltrane, Cannonball, Young, Bechet, Hawkins and Parker. He deserves that honor, as he embodies all of the finest qualities of those late, great musicians: hard work, dedication to his art, and exceptional music.
It takes a lot of grit and spirit to survive in this business, and you can feel that in the music:
“What we’re doing as artists probably goes hand in hand (with what we do) as people as well. We find a way to survive. You don’t allow the reality of denial or resistance or frustration. . . to dominate your thinking, your way of life . . . I’m still an individual that still has a lot of fight in him.”
We bless our good fortune that Sonny is still here, still breathing fire, blowing as soulfully and as hard as ever…
Thank you Mr. Fortune!
To experience this first hand, go listen to The Sonny Fortune Quartet at Sweet Rhythms (Bleecker and S.7th St. in the Village) Friday 19th and Saturday 20th of September.
Sonny Fortune and his Quartet: with Michael Carpenter on piano, Paul West on the contrabass, and Steve Johns on drums.
MAKE IT YOUR BUSINESS TO CATCH THIS JAZZ LEGEND!
“One of jazz’s most impressive saxophone virtuosi… Quite phenomenal… A big, hard, alternately gritty or keening sound…There is a wild, primitive quality to his sound…” has said Thomas Allbright of the San Francisco Chronicle.
Turns out there’s live jazz in our ‘hood regularly!
Jazz 966 remains one of the few places left in Brooklyn where quality jazz can still be heard without emptying your wallet. For the last 18 years, the chairman of the club, Sam Pinn has been true to his mission: “We try to be a place that keeps the music alive.” If music quality is more important to you than fancy surroundings and drinks, I am hoping you also will become Friday regulars at 966. The club offers live jazz music every Friday night for a minimal cover charge.
966 Fulton Street, Ft. Greene (718) 638-6910
Jazz lovers Edwidge and Kettly Menard are regulars of Jazz 966
Sonny Fortune with Marie Mai share a moment
The first couple who got up to dance.
I don’t know it yet, but in a minute, I am going to be whisked away to the dance floor. Rather amazing!
Pianist Michael Carpenter
Steve Johns on drums and percussions
Paul West on contrabass
When Fortune smiles on you…
For more information, check out Sonny Fortunes’s site at :
http://www.sonnyfortune.com/
and have a listen to these fantastic tunes!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Txflz_hxYzo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxN8ThnHSLM
“Continuum” marks both a personal and artistic milestone for veteran saxophonist-flutist Sonny Fortune. Besides being the first recording made for his own label, the album underscores Fortune’s gifts as a player, composer and arranger in revealing settings. In some respects, “Continuum” is a summation for Fortune, an homage to artists who’ve influenced him over the years. Not surprisingly, John Coltrane’s legacy looms large. “Trane and Things,” which alludes to Coltrane’s improbable transformation of “My Favorite Things” into a jazz staple, is a swirling delight, nimbly played on soprano sax and percussively accented by pianist George Cables.” The Washington Post (2004)
Sources:
Music critics:
Bill Meredith
Bob Weinberg
Nat Hentoff
Howard Mandel
Leyla and the Medicine Women
Her instrument is:
this cross to bear a wooden box
half hourglass half hollowness
restraining resonant air
to know what is not woman
not thing but voice
and with the audience
mute as a landscape
to let it scream”
Ramon C. Sunico ~“Cello poem”
Hey, Daddy, I want a diamond ring, bracelets, everything
Daddy, you oughta get the best for me
Hey, Daddy, gee, don’t I look swell in sables?
Clothes with Paris labels?
Daddy, you oughta get the best for me
I also loved the heartfelt Deep Elem Blues which closed the second set and had members of the audience dancing (yes, including moi !)) and tapping their feet while singing along:
Once I had a girlfriend, she meant the world to me
She went down to Deep Elem, now she ain’t what she used to be
Oh sweet mama, your daddy’s got them Deep Elem blues… True ‘Medicine Women”, these young women play to bring joy and in their own words, “to share the love”. Hey, I’ll take some! Ain’t ever enough of that going around. …
Michele with Leyla
La Diva! I love her spirit.
Blow, girl, blow! Maria was a wonderful surprise on the second set.
Leyla strums the guitar while singing, accompanied by Liz on the fiddle.
A little Hendrix mix on the electric guitar?
Such sweetness and sadness in Liz’s voice…
Saxophonist Maria Eisen, flutist Domenica Papaelias and cellist Leyla McCalla
This musician is also an expressive poet. (Secret’s out, Deborah!)
First time singing and playing the guitar? At the Tea Lounge and just for us!
Blazing technique: Leyla’s performance was vibrant. One could not help notice the dexterity of her fingering and the deep, soulful tone she coaxed from her cello. 
Before and After: Preparing the bow before the set and…
The original Medicine Women:Leyla McCalla and Deborah C. Smith
For information about the musicians and The Medicine Woman :
deborah@energy-project.com
Medicine Woman Roots Ensemble myspace site
Dog Days of Summer
“Je t’aime à la (Franco) folie”
Un joli programme s’est profilé à Tamboril vendredi soir pour la première de Francopholie organisée par Francesca. La fête régnait grâce aux artistes d’ici et d’ailleurs, dans un tour du monde où diversité culturelle et vivacité rafraîchissante se mêlaient. Musiciens et poètes venus du Sénégal, du Mali, de la Guyane française, du Canada, de la Suisse, du Cameroun, de la Martinique, de Madagascar et bien sûr d’Haïti, se sont retrouvés cette nuit là. Au programme? Exposition d’art, musique, chansons et poésie…
Artistes:
Musique
Jojo Kuo : Batterie
Georges: Basse electrique
Martino Atangana : Guitare
Dominique Canza: Guitare
Adou Azouni: Clavier
Tamango: Flûte
Sylvain Leroux: Flûte
Kali Z. Fasteau: Saxophone soprano
Tiga Jean-Baptiste : Tambour
Peinture
Ibou Ndoye
Frantz Emmanuel
Chanson
Jean-Louis Elianne
Elektra
Poésie
Jean Dany Joachim
Jeannie Bogart
et Michèle Marcelin
Au long des chaudes soirées des derniers week-ends d’août, le Tamboril est le cadre favori pour écouter les harmonies d’Afro Jazz tout en dégustant une cuisine nueva-latina. Vendredi soir, il a accueilli les artistes de Francopholie:
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Music is the weapon
Fela believed that music was the weapon of social fight for the future. Throughout a career that began with the London jazz scene and the uptown Nigerian Highlife music in the 1950’s, peaked with the revolutionary Afrobeat in the 1970’s, and inspired countless artists ever since, Fela lived out the war cry ‘Music is the Weapon’ like no other musician. He used his music to talk to the audience and to criticize international figures. To him democracy was “democrazy”, United Nations was “United Nonsense” and International Telegraph and Telecommunications was “International Thief Thief”. It’s almost impossible to overstate the impact and importance of his music and it is no exaggeration to say that Fela is to African Music what Marley is to Reggae: its prophet.
F for Flamboyant…
E for Electrifying…
L for Liberating…
A for Activist….
Such was Fela Kuti, revolutionary musician, political radical, enfant terrible and master provocateur who was born in Abeokuta, Nigeria in 1938. He was all that, as well as showman par excellence, an unredeemable sexist, a moody megalomaniac and the inventor of Afrobeat. His death in 1997 from heart failure due to AIDS deeply affected musicians and fans internationally when his voice was silenced.
“No other pop-culture icon has spoken truth-to-power in a more accessible form.” Jon Caramanica (Vibe Magazine)
Abeokuta, Nigeria
He was a composer, saxophonist, keyboardist, vocalist, dancer, activist, firebrand, icon…In 30 years, he produced nearly 80 albums, married 27 wives, had over 200 court appearances, was harassed, jailed, savagely beaten, tortured, consumed a prodigious amount of marijuana, spoke fearlessly against injustice, changed his name to “Anikulapo” a Yoruba word meaning “I have death in my pocket” because despite all the beatings and torture he suffered from the military government and his prison stays, he survived to play his music against those he called “Corrupt Politicians”. His time on earth was 58 years but in reality, he lived intensely more than one lifetime. To the Pan-African world, Fela was a towering figure who incarnated the sublime power of music and combined elements of pure artistry, political perseverance, and a mystic, spiritual consciousness in a way that no other individual ever has. He was proclaimed “Chief Priest” by the million people who lined the streets of Lagos to mourn his passing.
“Death doesn’t worry me man. When you think you die, you’re not dead. Its a transition. When my mother died it was because she finished her time on earth. I know that when I die I’ll see her again, so how can I fear death? . . . So what is this motherfucking world about? . . . I believe there is a plan . . . I believe there is no accident in our lives. What I am experiencing today completely vindicates the African religions. . . I will do my part . . . then I’ll just go, man…Just go!”
With his faithful Nigerian Green Grass rolled in a joint as large as a baobab tree accompanying him on his journey, Fela may well be in transition, smoking away, looking on and just laughing!
Last night, I went to see FELA! the new musical which explores Fela Kuti’s controversial life as artist, political activist and revolutionary musician. From the time I entered the theater, Bill T. Jones’ imaginative staging invited me into the Shrine and into Fela’s extravagant, decadent and provocative lifestyle. The show is a multi-sensory experience that includes elements of film, concert, dance and musical theater. Fela’s captivating songs are performed by the Afrobeat Brooklyn group Antibalas.
Sahr Ngaujah (who plays Fela) and director and choreographer Bill T. Jones
The entire ensemble is extraordinary (and the dancers are so sexy it’s to die for!) but Sahr Ngaujah who plays the role of Fela is so charismatic and talented, it took my breath away! Talking to the audience, he would say: If you like this, say ye-ye… I would have said ye-ye all night long!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-SQH94Pifc
Afrobeat is an intoxicating mixture of Yoruba harmonies, jazz, Highlife, and funk rhythms, fused with percussion and vocal styles, popularized in the 1970’s by Fela, who shaped the musical structure and also the political context of the genre in Nigeria when he returned from a U.S tour with his group. Fela’s new sound hailed from a club that he established called the Afro-Shrine and he was known for bringing huge bands to the stage, including many singers, dancers, percussionists, brass musicians, and guitarists.
Characteristics of Afrobeat are:
Big bands: A large group of musicians playing various instruments;
Energy: Energetic, exciting and with high tempo, poly-rhythmic percussion;
Repetition: The same musical movements are repeated many times;
Improvisation: Performing without set music;
Combination of genres: A mixture of various musical influences.
Vocals sung in Yoruba and Pidgin English as Kuti regarded this as being the language best understood across all of Africa’s borders.
Vivian Goldman of the Rolling Stones magazine writes: “The persuasive vocals of his female singers and dancers traded call-and-response with Fela’s rough warmth, and always, there was the urgent howl of Fela’s sax riding on the imposing power of the drums”.
The Shrine Nightclub – Lagos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fxVy4FS46r0
Play the music. Talk the talk. Walk the walk!
Once during a concert, Fela stood on the stage talking (preaching?) until the audience screamed: “Just play a song, man!” . Fela responded “The only reason I play music is so I can get up here and talk to you.”
Fela’s family was firmly middle class as well as politically active. His father was a pastor (and talented pianist), his feminist mother active in the anti-colonial, anti-military, Nigerian home rule movement. So at an early age, Fela experienced politics and music in a seamless combination. He went off to London in 1958 for a medical education but registered instead at Trinity College’s school of music. He began his career as an apolitical artist, playing party music for Lagos’ nightlife set, and attempting to create a distinctive art music that would bring him the fame and recognition he craved. During a trip to the United States in 1970 to break into the American music market, he met Sandra Smith, a member of the Black Panther Party who introduced him to key texts, particularly The Autobiography of Malcolm X. that would drastically change his music, his life, and ultimately, his relationship with Nigerian society. He reinvented himself as an observer of Nigerian civil society whose self-appointed task was to re-educate the masses as to the ways in which their government and multinational corporations act to blind the people as to their own self-interest by using his music as a “weapon”. There is no corrupt head of state or politician, who escaped the judgement of Fela’s music. Because his music addressed issues important to the Nigerian underclass , Fela was the voice of Nigeria’s have-nots and a cultural rebel. This was something Nigeria’s military junta tried to nip in the bud, and from almost the moment he came back to Nigeria up until his death, Fela was hounded, jailed, harassed, and nearly killed by a government determined to silence him. In one of the most egregious acts of violence committed against him, 1,000 Nigerian soldiers attacked his Kalakuta compound in 1977 . Fela suffered a fractured skull as well as other broken bones; his 82-year old mother was thrown from an upstairs window, inflicting injuries that would later prove fatal. The soldiers set fire to the compound and prevented fire fighters from reaching the area. Fela’s recording studio, all his master tapes and musical instruments were destroyed. He was beaten so mercilessly that everyone thought that was the end of his life, yet he came back to hit his enemies with his songs and the spirit of the Shrine did not die. In so brutally and repeatedly subjecting Fela to persecution, the authorities helped to raise his name to the level of myth. They used so much force and savagery that their victims came to be celebrated as martyrs. And the military found that, though they had power to crush bones and burn houses, they could not even dent the indomitable spirit of Fela and his followers. And it was a memorable expression of that defiance and indomitable courage that on September 10, 1979, the day before Obasanjo handed power over to the civilians, Fela and his people defied all the guards to lay the coffin of his mother right on the doorstep of Dodan Barracks, as a statement of the ultimate futility of state power over the liberty of the human mind.
John Dougan (All Music Guide)
Some Fela lyrics:
Zombies (this song mocked soldiers as robotic idiots mindlessly following orders)
Zombie no go go, unless you tell am to go
Zombie no go stop, unless you tell am to stop
Zombie no go turn, unless you tell am to turn
Zombie no go think, unless you tell am to think …
I.T.T.
Them gradually, gradually, gradually, gradually
Them go be:
Friend friend to journalist
Friend to friend to Commissioner
Friend friend to Permanent Secretary
Friend to friend to Minister
Friend to friend to Head of State
Then they start start to steal money
Start start them corruption
Start start them inflation
Start start them oppression
Start start them confusion
Start start them oppression
Start start to steal money
I.T.T International thief thief…
“Oooooooooooooooooh”, recalls Fela. “I was beaten by police! So much… How can a human being stand so much beating with club and not die?”
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Et la terre, comme la langue
In memoriam Mahmoud Darwich
13 Mars 1942 – 9 Aout 2008
” Jamais nos exils ne furent vains, jamais en vain nous n’y fûmes envoyés, leurs morts s’étendront sans contrition. Aux vivants de pleurer l’accalmie du vent, d’apprendre à ouvrir les fenêtres, de voir ce que le passé fait de leur présence et de pleurer doucement et doucement que l’adversaire n’entende ce qu’il y a en eux de poterie brisée.
Martyrs vous aviez raison. La maison est plus belle que le chemin de la maison. En dépit de la trahison des fleurs. Mais les fenêtres ne s’ouvrent point sur le ciel et l’exil est l’exil. Ici et là bas. Jamais en vain nous ne fûmes exilés et nos exils ne sont passés en vain.
Et la terre
Se transmet
Comme la langue.”
“Encore et toujours la violence plutôt que la concorde. La guerre au lieu de la paix. Toujours plus loin, toujours plus fort, toujours plus … toujours plus de quoi pour qu’Israël arrête sa terreur quotidienne, sa colonisation, sa main mise sur la Palestine ?”
“Qu’il n’y ait plus un seul arabe en terre sainte ? Jusqu’où ira cette escalade absurde, ubuesque ? Parce que tout le monde (sauf Israël ?) sait que les Palestiniens ne partiront jamais, que la solution ne peut être que politique, qu’il ne peut, qu’il ne doit, y avoir qu’un seul état binational, une Palestine laïque et démocratique. Le conflit peut encore durer cent ans, les positions des uns et des autres ne changeront jamais. Soit on se bat jusqu’à la nuit des temps, soit l’on accepte de vivre ensemble.”
Le rêve du poète: “hisser le drapeau palestinien” à Jérusalem.
” J’ai trouvé que la terre était fragile, et la mer, légère ; j’ai appris que la langue et la métaphore ne suffisent point pour fournir un lieu au lieu. N’ayant pu trouver ma place sur la terre, j’ai tenté de la trouver dans l’Histoire. Et l’Histoire ne peut se réduire à une compensation de la géographie perdue. C’est également un point d’observation des ombres, de soi et de l’Autre, saisis dans un cheminement humain plus complexe. Est-ce là simple ruse artistique, simple emprunt ? Est-ce, au contraire, le désespoir qui prend corps ? La réponse n’a aucune importance. L’essentiel est que j’ai trouvé ainsi une plus grande capacité lyrique, et un passage du relatif vers l’absolu. Une ouverture, pour que j’inscrive le national dans l’universel, pour que la Palestine ne se limite pas à la Palestine, mais qu’elle fonde sa légitimité esthétique dans un espace humain plus vaste. ”
Mahmoud Darwich est mort. Une lumière s’éteint mais la clarté demeure. Demeurent aussi ses livres et ses poèmes. Son nom va continuer à briller. Son oeuvre est irradiée et hantée d’un bout à l’autre par une seule idée, une seule référence, un seul corps: la Palestine. La solitude et le désarroi de l’exil côtoient l’espoir:
“Dépose ici et maintenant la tombe que tu portes et donne à ta vie une autre chance de restaurer le récit.Toutes les amours ne sont pas trépas, ni la terre, migration chronique.Une occasion pourrait se présenter, tu oublieras la brûlure du miel ancien…”
“Ici, aux pentes des collines, face au crépuscule et au canon du temps, près des jardins aux ombres brisées, nous faisons ce que font les prisonniers, ce que font les chômeurs: Nous cultivons l’espoir”
Il sera emprisonné à cause de ses poèmes à cinq reprises entre 1961 et 1967 . Le poème Identité (Inscris : Je suis arabe), le plus célèbre de son recueil Rameaux d’olivier publié en 1964, dépasse rapidement les frontières palestiniennes pour devenir un hymne chanté dans tout le monde arabe:
Inscris !
Je suis Arabe
Le numéro de ma carte : cinquante mille
Nombre d’enfants : huit
Et le neuvième… arrivera après l’été !
Et te voilà furieux !
Inscris !
Je suis Arabe
Je travaille à la carrière avec mes compagnons de peine
Et j’ai huit bambins
Leur galette de pain
Les vêtements, leur cahier d’écolier
Je les tire des rochers…
Oh ! je n’irai pas quémander l’aumône à ta porte
Je ne me fais pas tout petit au porche de ton palais
Et te voilà furieux !
Inscris !
Je suis Arabe
Sans nom de famille – je suis mon prénom
« Patient infiniment » dans un pays où tous
Vivent sur les braises de la Colère
Mes racines…
Avant la naissance du temps elles prirent pied
Avant l’effusion de la durée
Avant le cyprès et l’olivier …avant l’éclosion de l’herbe
Mon père… est d’une famille de laboureurs
N’a rien avec messieurs les notables
Mon grand-père était paysan – être Sans valeur – ni ascendance.
Ma maison, une hutte de gardien
En troncs et en roseaux
Voilà qui je suis – cela te plaît-il ?
Sans nom de famille, je ne suis que mon prénom.
Inscris !
Je suis Arabe
Mes cheveux… couleur du charbon
Mes yeux… couleur de café
Signes particuliers :
Sur la tête un kefiyyé avec son cordon bien serré
Et ma paume est dure comme une pierre …
elle écorche celui qui la serre
La nourriture que je préfère c’est
L’huile d’olive et le thym
Mon adresse : Je suis d’un village isolé…
Où les rues n’ont plus de noms
Et tous les hommes…
à la carrière comme au champ
Aiment bien le communisme
Inscris ! Je suis Arabe
Et te voilà furieux !
Inscris
Que je suis Arabe
Que tu as rafflé les vignes de mes pères
Et la terre que je cultivais
Moi et mes enfants ensemble
Tu nous as tout pris hormis
Pour la survie de mes petits-fils
Les rochers que voici
Mais votre gouvernement va les saisir aussi …à ce que l’on dit !
DONC Inscris !
En tête du premier feuillet
Que je n’ai pas de haine pour les hommes
Que je n’assaille personne mais que
Si j’ai faim
Je mange la chair de mon Usurpateur
Gare ! Gare !
Gare
À ma fureur !
Mahmoud Darwich
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The Prince
In 1968, in the Malian capital of Bamako, a land of kingdoms, a 19-year-old boy descended from Malian princes defied the conventions of his noble ancestry to become a singer. This begins like a fairy tale, and like most princes in fairy tales, he received at birth both gifts and curses: an incomparable voice, musical talent, bad eyesight, and the gene that made him an albino.
In Malian culture, albinos are cursed because they are believed to carry evil powers and Salif Keita was ostracized and became an outcast. Isolated and lovelorn, the unhappy prince could have become a bandit. But art is alchemy; it possesses the power to transform suffering into light, and Keita was able to free himself from the pain in his life through cathartic song. That a man with royal blood would choose to work as a musician caused a storm of protest in the Mali of the 1960’s, but Keita, undeterred, kept singing in the Bamako streets.
Bamako is a hot, dusty city that sprawls along both banks of the Niger River in southern Mali. Musicians from Mali often say “All we have here is a bit of gold, the Niger river and our music. The Sahara is advancing all the time, so soon, all we will have left is our culture.” Manding griots, who sang to evoke the grand struggles and tragedies of history, and open-air performances by itinerant musicians are part of a musical tradition that goes back at least six centuries. When Salif Keita formed a trio with his brothers, they followed that tradition and naturally, played on the streets and the nightclubs of Bamako. This is how the career of one of Africa’s greatest singers began. He sang with the group Les Ambassadeurs creating popular fusion-dance music until the 1980’s. Then he set out on his solo career and moved to Paris in 1984. While living there, he created new songs, blending together the traditional griot music of his Malian childhood with a myriad styles from the diaspora ( West African influences from Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and Senegal, along with musical undercurrents from Cuba, Spain, and Portugal). With these songs, Keita changed the public’s perception about African music: these were no longer tunes one would mindlessly dance to; this music was important enough to listen to. 
His artistic ingenuity, charismatic presence, and magnificent voice make Salif Keita one of the most celebrated African singers today. He holds a unique place in the heart of music lovers. As an official “Minister for Music and Culture”, he relentlessly crosses the globe, spreading his hypnotic brand of world-fusion music.
Salif Keita-vocals, Souleymane Doumbia-percussion, Harouna Samake-kamale n’goni, Mamadou Kone-calebasse, Djely Kouyate-guitar, Ousmane Kouyate-guitar, Marie-Line Marolany-vocals and dance, Maria Marolany-vocals and dance, Mike Celini-bass, Ghislain Biwandu, drums 
Keita sings with passion yet his undeniable gentleness shines through. He often keeps his eyes shut while singing and after each song, he thanks the audience in a soft voice. Every musician in his ensemble is exceptional and the soundscape, created by the diversity of instruments used (African percussions, calabashes, a talking drum, a kora, bass, electric guitar and Keita’s own acoustic guitar which he uses to accompany certain songs), is riveting and original,
Sharing the wondrous joy of music!
It seemed it would never stop.
Right before the rain, the summer night was sultry, then the clouds changed color and from the sky, drops first, then a gush of water; people grab umbrellas, others look for scarves and newspapers; Buyu has wrapped a plastic bag like a turban around his head; some scramble to find shelter under leafy trees, others remain unfazed through the deluge: a woman next to me says it’s a blessing this rain, think of how many places it hasn’t rained and the earth suffers; Sansan is getting soaked, just his beret to protect him yet he remains serene, his right hand cupped to capture rainwater. Didi reminisces about playing naked in the rain when he was a child, the pleasure of water on his bare skin, so free; rain soaks my blouse, my hair, puddles of water form on the chair; my skirt is drenched, my thighs are wet, but we all stay there, waiting for Salif Keita to come onstage; And as the rain stops, he saunters in, dressed in royal blue and gold, and his voice takes flight and takes me along, and i’m on its wings, and i’m a child of the earth and i’m an angel; and the voice explodes, vibrant and mournful, and i’m filled with longing and so many other emotions like multicolored ribbons unraveling, joy and sadness, i’m bereft and free, and the music comes from the sky, from all around me, i am surrounded by music and by all these people in the dark green of the park who sway, abandonning themselves to the rhythm; Salif sings in Bambara and we don’t know what the words mean but we repeat the sounds we hear, it’s an irresistible feeling and we all lose ourselves in the music; Salif Keita sings and suddenly the world is a wonder; and Keita jumps and we jump and Keita wails and we wail, and there are traditional howls coming from women in the audience, and the dancers are beautiful; one has a green wrap and she flays her arms around wildly and her hips gyrate up and down and around, and whatever is happening onstage seems to be replicated in the audience; Didi is mesmerized by the dancer in yellow, her headwrap has fallen and her hair is loosened and she is at once graceful and sensual, long-limbed like some gazelle, biological curiosity he calls it, this hypnotic trance he gets into when he watches beauty; there must be thousands of people in the park and we smell sweat and beer and spicy food and corn chips and the wet fur of Stephanie’s dog, she smuggled her in, and we are high on music and we chant Salif, Salif ; and each of his musicians is a star: the kora player, and the bass player, and the percussionist and the dancers who sing and Keita has a sound that comes from below his guts, like it’s coming from inside his balls, it’s too deep and mournful and real and it’s the last song and with the generosity of a prince, Keita shares his light and invites people from the audience to come on stage , there is an amazing musician, long blond hair, who jumps up and plays the electric guitar and others dance and there is no doubt at all that Salif is a prince. The Prince. And when the show ends, after he has said his last thank you’s, in such a low , gentle tone, we’re walking through the park, past that sweet smelling tree, so much like perfume, tiny white flowers on the tree, i don’t know it’s name, but i know we were blessed continuously tonight.
THE SALIF KEITA GLOBAL FOUNDATION
Compère Jacques Soleil
Jacques Stéphen Alexis fut porteur d‘existences multiples. Son voyage vers la belle amour humaine lui permit de vivre les vies diverses du médecin guérisseur, du romancier alliant réalisme et merveilleux, de l’humaniste offrant à l’homme un plus grand espoir, du militant organisant un débarquement pour renverser la dictature – dernière aventure qui mit un point final à ce voyage par sa torture et son assassinat. L’ombre et la terreur ont cru éliminer “Compère Jacques Soleil”; elles n’ont pu tuer que son corps. L’organisme est mort, pas la vie. Il est de certains hommes comme des champs de canne. On peut les brûler jusqu’aux racines pour les détruire et voilà que repousse la canne plus belle et plus vivace, toutes saisons et toutes fleurs réunies. Hors du temps, de l’espace, et à travers son oeuvre, Jacques Stéphen Alexis n’en finit pas de nous crier ses mots réels et merveilleux.
Michèle V. Marcelin
“Je ne suis jamais arrivé à établir de cloisonnement entre mon activité scientifique, mon travail de médecin, de neurologue et de psychiatre d’une part, et mon labeur, ma création de romancier d’autre part; j’ai le sentiment que mon activité s’exerce en un domaine unique: le domaine de l’humain.”
Jacques Stéphen Alexis, homme d’espoir
sa m kapab di
sa m janm kapab di
ki ta vo kouray
jak aleksi
yo bat li jouk grenn je l
sot tonbe nan men l
li tap di nou toujou kenbe
m ekri pou nou kenbe
an nou touye laront
pou laront pa touye nou
feliks moriso lewa
dyakout 2
{que pourrais-je dire/que pourrais-je jamais dire/qui vaudrait le courage de jacques alexis/ils l’ont battu jusqu’à ce que son oeil lui tombe dans la main/ il nous avait dit: gardez toujours votre courage/j’écris pour vous donner du courage/tuons la honte pour que la honte ne nous tue pas – traduction m. marcelin}
Descendant de Jean-Jacques Dessalines, fondateur de l’indépendance d’Haïti, Jacques Stéphen Alexis, né en 1922 aux Gonaïves, est aussi le fils de l’historien, journaliste et diplomate Stéphen Alexis. Son enfance et sa formation d’adolescent ont été fortement marquées par l’influence de sa famille, par l’occupation nord-américaine de 1915-1934 et par l’emprise intellectuelle qu’eut sur lui l’écrivain Jacques Roumain.
Au cours de son enfance, qui se déroula dans le cadre familial de Pont l’Ester, Alexis put entendre battre les tambours du cérémonial vaudou et écouter la musique et les récits transmis dans les campagnes par les simidors. C’est sans doute à cette époque qu’il acquiert cet amour viscéral de son pays qui ne le quittera jamais, et qui englobait aussi bien la terre natale que la communauté humaine avec toutes ses contradictions.
Il grandit à l’ombre de la politique, dans l’entourage de la presse et du bouillonnement culturel que suscita la résistance à l’occupation. Son père ayant été nommé ambassadeur à Londres, Alexis va commencer ses études à Paris. De retour en Haïti, il s’inscrira à la Faculté de Médecine de Port-au-Prince.
Alexis a vingt-trois ans! L’âge d’or! Il collabore à différentes revues littéraires, fonde La Ruche – qui aura pour mission de faire refleurir un printemps littéraire et social- et joue un rôle important dans la révolution de 1946, responsable de la chute du gouvernement d’Elie Lescot.
Jacques-Stéphen Alexis, Georges Beaufils, Gérald Bloncourt, Théodore Baker et Gérard Chenet – 11 janvier 1946.La révolution haïtienne de 1946, connue sous le nom des « Cinq Glorieuses » était une révolte d’étudiants et de jeunes intellectuels. Le mouvement se répandit dans la population de Port-au-Prince et des environs et aboutit au départ du Président Elie Lescot.
Que faire de ces activistes encombrants? Certains seront arrêtés, d’autres exilés. Pour éloigner Alexis, le gouvernement d’Estimé lui accorde, comme à son ami René Depestre, une bourse d’étude pour l’étranger. Alexis part faire sa spécialisation en neurologie à Paris où il fréquente Aragon, Senghor, Césaire, ainsi que les écrivains latino-américains Guillén, Neruda et Amado. Il continue à militer dans les organisations de gauche et s’inscrit au Parti Communiste Français en 1949.
Il rédige son premier roman, Compère Général Soleil. Publié à Paris en 1955, il place Alexis d’emblée parmi les grands écrivains de la région des Caraïbes. Son message? Gardez l’espoir! Lui qui écrit pour changer le passé est doté d’un sens aigu du sacrifice et l’engagement est inscrit en permanence dans son oeuvre.
Lors du mémorable Premier Congrès des écrivains, artistes et intellectuels noirs, tenu en 1956 à la Sorbonne, Alexis explore de façon décisive le concept-clé du réalisme merveilleux qui permet d’appréhender et de réinterpréter “cette sensibilité particulière des Haïtiens, fils de trois races et de combien de cultures”.
La publication en 1957 de son deuxième roman Les Arbres musiciens , le consacre définitivement. Le roman nous entraîne dans l’époque de la campagne dite “anti-superstitueuse” qui suit les menées americaines visant à déposséder les paysans de leurs terres.
Le dernier, L’Espace d’un cillement , est publié en 1959.La Niña Estrellita, jeune prostituée mulâtresse, est la vedette du Sensation Bar à Port-au-Prince. Un jour, elle y rencontre un mécanicien progressiste, El Caucho. Ils deviennent amoureux l’un de l’autre au premier regard et décident de vivre ensemble… l’espace d’un cillement.
Son dernier ouvrage Romancero aux étoiles, paru en 1960, est un recueil de contes qui plongent le lecteur dans l’univers fabuleux des Caraïbes.
A son retour en Haïti, constatant que le régime duvaliériste s’est transformé en dictature sanglante, il repart pour Moscou et Pékin dans l’espoir de se procurer les moyens de former un corps expéditionnaire afin de renverser Duvalier.
En avril 1961, il est à Cuba d’où il s’embarque avec quatre camarades: Charles Adrien-Georges, Guy Béliard, Hubert Dupuis-Nouillé et Max Monroe.
Ils débarquent sur la côte nord-d’ouest d’Haïti -la plage de Bombardopolis- possiblement avec l’objectif de rallier le hounfort Souvenance (dédié aux loas racines des Alexis) et organiser la lutte contre François Duvalier. Dénoncés par les paysans, les cinq hommes seront immédiatement capturés, sauvagement torturés, et exécutés par les Tontons Macoutes. Alexis a alors 39 ans.
On n’a jamais pu connaitre avec certitude les circonstances de la mort d’Alexis. D’après certain témoignages, il aurait succombé sous la torture; selon d’autres, il aurait été passé par les armes des Tonton-macoutes à Fort Dimanche.
Le régime n’a jamais officiellement reconnu sa mort.
Auto-proclamé “le Grand Electrificateur”, François Duvalier instaure en Haïti une dictature féroce, dont l’usage et l’ampleur de la violence font oublier tous les régimes autoritaires traditionnels et sanguinaires qui l’ont précédée. Duvalier, né en 1907, médecin et ethnologue, règne en président à vie d’Haïti du 22 octobre 1957 au 21 avril 1971, date de sa mort. Son fils Jean-Claude, alors âgé de 19 ans, lui succède comme président à vie jusqu’au 7 février 1986. Pendant 29 ans, Papa Doc et Baby Doc édifient dans la première république noire des Amériques un empire obscurantiste qui plonge le pays dans la plus grande terreur.
Moins d’un an avant sa mort atroce, Alexis écrivait cette lettre au Président Duvalier:
Pétion Ville, le 2 juin 1960
Monsieur le Docteur François Duvalier
Président de la République
Palais National
Monsieur le Président,
Dans quelque pays civilisé qu’il me plairait de vivre, je crois pouvoir dire que je serais accueilli à bras ouverts : ce n’est un secret pour personne. Mais mes morts dorment dans cette terre ; ce sol est rouge du sang de générations d’hommes qui portent mon nom ; je descends par deux fois, en lignée directe, de l’homme qui fonda cette patrie, aussi j’ai décidé de vivre ici et peut-être d’y mourir. Sur ma promotion de vingt-deux médecins, dix-neuf vivent en terre étrangère. Moi, je reste, en dépit des offres qui m’ont été et me sont faites. Dans bien des pays bien plus agréables que celui-ci, dans bien des pays où je serais plus estimé et honoré que je ne le suis en Haïti, il me serait fait un pont d’or, si je consentais à y résider. Je reste néanmoins.
Ce n’est certainement pas par vaine forfanterie que je commence ma lettre ainsi, Monsieur le Président, mais je tiens à savoir si je suis ou non indésirable dans mon pays. Je n’ai jamais, Dieu merci, prêté attention aux petits inconvénients de la vie en Haïti, certaines filatures trop ostensibles, maintes tracasseries, si ce n’est les dérisoires avanies qui sont le fait des nouveaux messieurs de tous les pays sous-développés. Il est néanmoins naturel que je veuille être fixé sur l’essentiel.
Bref, Monsieur le Président, je viens au fait. Le 31 mai, soit avant-hier soir, au vu et au su de tout le monde, je déménageais de mon domicile de la ruelle Rivière, à Bourdon, pour aller m’installer à Pétion Ville. Quelle ne fut pas ma stupéfaction d’apprendre que le lendemain de mon départ, soit hier soir, mon ex-domicile avait été cerné par des policiers qui me réclamaient, à l’émoi du quartier. Je ne sache pas avoir des démêlés avec votre Police et de toutes façons, j’en ai tranquillement attendu les mandataires à mon nouveau domicile. Je les attends encore après avoir d’ailleurs vaqué en ville à mes occupations ordinaires, toute la matinée de ce jourd’hui 2 juin.
Si les faits se révélaient exacts, je suis assez au courant des classiques méthodes policières pour savoir que cela s’appelle une manoeuvre d’intimidation. En effet, j’habite à Pétion Ville, à proximité du domicile de Monsieur le Préfet Chauvet. On sait donc vraisemblablement où me trouver, si besoin réel en était. Aussi si cette manoeuvre d’intimidation, j’ai coutume d’appeler un chat un chat, n’était que le fait de la Police subalterne, il n’est pas inutile que vous soyez informé de certains de ces procédés. Il est enseigné à l’Université Svorolovak dans les cours de technique anti-policière, que quand les Polices des pays bourgeois sont surchargées ou inquiètes, elles frappent au hasard, alors qu’en période ordinaire, elles choisissent les objectifs de leurs coups. Peut-être dans cette affaire ce principe classique s’applique-t-il, mais Police inquiète ou non, débordée ou non, je dois chercher à comprendre l’objectif réel de cette manoeuvre d’intimidation.
Je me suis d’abord demandé si l’on ne visait pas à me faire quitter le pays en créant autour de moi une atmosphère d’insécurité. Je ne me suis pas arrêté à cette interprétation, car peut-être sait-on que je ne suis pas jusqu’ici accessible à ce sentiment qui s’appelle la peur, ayant sans sourciller plusieurs fois regardé la mort en face. Je n’ai pas non plus retenu l’hypothèse que le mobile de la manoeuvre policière en question est de me porter à me mettre à couvert. J’ai en effet également appris dans quelles conditions prendre le maquis est une entreprise rentable pour celui qui le décide ou pour ceux qui le portent à le faire. Il ne restait plus à retenir comme explication que l’intimidation projetée visant à m’amener moi-même à restreindre ma liberté de mouvement. Dans ce cas encore, ce serait mal me connaître.
Tout le monde sait que pour qu’une plante produise à plein rendement, il lui faut les sèves de son terroir natif. Un romancier qui respecte son art ne peut être un homme de nulle part, une véritable création ne peut non plus se concevoir en cabinet, mais en plongeant dans les tréfonds de la vie de son peuple. L’écrivain authentique ne peut se passer du contact journalier des gens aux mains dures – les seuls qui valent d’ailleurs la peine qu’on se donne – c’est de cet univers que procède le grand oeuvre, univers sordide peut-être mais tant lumineux et tellement humain que lui seul permet de transcender les humanités ordinaires. Cette connaissance intime des pulsations de la vie quotidienne de notre peuple ne peut s’acquérir sans la plongée directe dans les couches profondes des masses. C’est là la leçon première de la vie et de l’oeuvre de Frédéric Marcelin, de Hibbert, de Lhérisson ou de Roumain. Chez eux, les gens simples avaient accès à toute heure comme des amis, de même que ces vrais mainteneurs de l’haïtianité étaient chez eux dans les moindres locatis des quartiers de la plèbe. Mes nombreux amis de par le vaste monde ont beau s’inquiéter des conditions de travail qui me sont faites en Haïti, je ne peux renoncer à ce terroir.
Egalement, en tant que médecin de la douleur, je ne peux pas renoncer à la clientèle populaire, celle des faubourgs et des campagnes, la seule payante au fait, dans ce pays qu’abandonnent presque tous nos bons spécialistes. Enfin, en tant qu’homme et en tant que citoyen, il m’est indispensable de sentir la marche inexorable de la terrible maladie, cette mort lente, qui chaque jour conduit notre peuple au cimetière des nations comme les pachydermes blessés à la nécropole des éléphants. Je connais mon devoir envers la jeunesse de mon pays et envers notre peuple travailleur. Là non plus, je n’abdiquerai pas. Goering disait une fois quand on cite devant lui le mot culture, il tire son révolver ; nous savons où cela a conduit l’Allemagne et l’exode mémorable de la masse des hommes de culture du pays des Niebelungen. Mais nous sommes dans la deuxième moitié du XXème siècle qui sera quoiqu’on fasse le siècle du peuple roi. Je ne peux m’empêcher de rappeler cette parole fameuse du grand patriote qui s’appelle le Sultan Sidi Mohamer Ben Youssef, parole qui illumine les combats libérateurs de ce siècle des nationalités malheureuses. ” Nous sommes les enfants de l’avenir !”, disait-il de retour de son exil en relevant son pitoyable ennemi, le Pacha de Marrakech effondré à ses pieds. Je crois avoir prouvé que je suis un enfant de l’avenir.
La limitation de mes mouvements, de mes travaux, de mes occupations, de mes démarches ou de mes relations en ville ou à la campagne n’est pas pour moi une perspective acceptable. Je tenais à le dire. C’est ce qui vaut encore cette lettre. J’en ai pris mon parti, car la Police, si elle veut, peut très bien se rendre compte que la politique des candidats ne m’intéresse pas. La désolente et pitoyable vie politicienne qui maintient ce pays dans l’arriération et le conduit à la faillite depuis cent cinquante ans n’est pas mon fait. J’en ai le plus profond dégoût, ainsi que je l’écrivais, il y a déjà près de trois ans.
D’aventure, si, comme en décembre dernier, la douane refuse de me livrer un colis – un appareil de projection d’art que m’envoyait l’Union des Ecrivais Chinois et qu’un des nouveaux messieurs a probablement accaparé pour son usage personnel -, j’en sourirai. Si je remarque le visage trop reconnaissable d’un ange gardien veillant à ma porte, j’en sourirai encore. Si un de ces nouveaux messieurs heurte ma voiture et que je doive l’en remercier, j’en sourirai derechef. Toutefois, Monsieur le Président, que je tiens à savoir si oui ou non on me refuse le droit de vivre dans mon pays, comme je l’entends. Je suis sûr qu’après cette lettre, j’aurai le moyen de m’en faire une idée. Dans ce cas, je prendrai beaucoup mieux les décisions qui s’imposent à moi à la fois en tant que créateur, que médecin, qu’homme et que citoyen.
Veuillez agréer, Monsieur le Président, l’expression de mes salutations patriotiques et de mes sentiments distingués.
Jacques Stéphen ALEXIS
Alexis restera dans l’histoire des lettres haïtiennes à plusieurs titres: l’un des tous premiers écrivains d’Haïti à atteindre une renommée internationale -ses livres, publiés chez Gallimard, sont encore disponibles plus de trente ans après sa mort- ; son oeuvre présageait les nouvelles directions qu’allait prendre le genre narratif haïtien; il est l’un des rares écrivains du pays à avoir produit des réflexions théoriques sur la littérature; enfin, sa mort atroce aux mains de la tyrannie a inscrit son nom au martyrologe des écrivains qui sont tombés pour la dignité humaine.
Texte de Jacques-Stéphen Alexis, écrit pour Présence Africaine (1957)
Le roman correspond à un vieux besoin des hommes, celui de dresser des affabulations qui reproduisent le mouvement de leurs vies et de leurs rêves. Le roman, c’est la conciliation de l’imaginaire et du réel, il est éternel comme notre goût des belles histoires, notre incorrigible propension au conte et à la légende. C’est un vin nouveau que nous autres, romanciers de jeunes cultures, avons à offrir au monde. C’est toute la vie âpre, drue, colorée, païenne, piaffante, musicienne, poétique, tragique, combattante, chienne et fée, que nous devons mettre en scène. Nos peuples aux poings liés, aux pieds entravés et aux bouches bâillonnées ont besoin de nous. Artistes nous sommes, et en artistes conscients de la difficulté et de la complexité de l’oeuvre d’art, nous devons travailler à dénoncer l’aliénation raciste, colonialiste, impérialiste. Pour ce faire, le réalisme est notre seule chance. Il n’est pas vrai que la réalité quotidienne soit anti-artistique. L’art est un combat avec l’ange, il faut être difficile avec soi-même, se surpasser par l’assimilation d’une optique juste de la création et vaincre les difficultés qui nous assaillent.
Comme tous les jeunes Haïtiens, depuis mon enfance l’influence des conteurs populaires de chez nous m’a marqué. Bien plus, ayant eu des contacts fréquents et prolongés avec la vie rurale, les paysans et les petites gens de chez nous, cette empreinte a été particulièrement forte. De ces conteurs qui ont bercé ma jeunesse, j’ai pris le goût d’interpréter la réalité nationale avec une certaine tendance philosophique. Sans que cela n’aboutisse à un procédé scolastique ou apparent de l’histoire racontée par nos simidors, nos composes et nos tireurs se dégagent toujours trois questions angoissantes: Qu’est l’homme? Où va-t-il? Comment vivre? Dans mon oeuvre je crois que l’on peut toujours trouver ces questions et des réponses précises. Ces conteurs m’ont également donné conscience de la réalité sociale. La merveille est le vêtement dans lequel certains peuples enferment leur sagesse et leur connaissance de la vie. Pour notre peuple les vents, les fleuves, les saisons, les éléments sont des personnages vivants qui interviennent dans la vie des hommes; pourrais-je rester fidèle à la symbolique de la vie du peuple que je veux servir et aider si j’employais une forme étrangère à leur démarche de pensée?
Archives de Gerard Bloncourt, CIDIHCA,
Les dossiers d’Île en île,Yves Chemla,
Armand Gatti et Alliance-Haïti
L’organisme meurt, pas la vie – Gilles Deleuze
Toutes saison, toutes fleurs reunies – Raymond Chassagne
The bitter voice of tenderness
“esta noche no voy a rogarte
esta noche te vas de veras
que difícil tratar de olvidarte
sin que sienta que ya no me quieras
nada me han enseñado los años
siempre caigo en los mismos errores
otra vez a brindar con extraños
y a llorar por los mismos dolores”
Chavela Vargas:
The bitter voice of tenderness
She left her native Costa Rica at 14 because there were so few musical career opportunities and sought refuge in Mexico. For many years she sang in the streets but in her thirties she became a professional singer. Her passionate voice, rough yet tender and her fearlessness, brought her to the public’s attention in Mexico in the late 50s. She dressed in men’s clothing, smoked cigars, carried a gun and chased women in a time when this was unimaginable. She openly pursued women with “rancheras”, dramatic Mexican songs about love and jealousy until then only sung by men. In her mouth, they became a transgressive and seductive force.
In the 80’s, art seemed to imitate life and Vargas drowned the sorrows of a broken heart in liters of tequila. She remained submerged in an alcohol-fueled delirium for the next 10 years, after which she returned to the public, taking both stage and screen by storm. “I have emerged from Hell through my songs.” she declared.
Her strong personality, her amazing voice and her appetite for life turned her into a mythical figure and an inspiration and muse to countless artists.
“A woman has many lives to live. In order to do so many things and break so many limits, as I’ve done, one has to be very much a woman. At the end it will be told.”
PALOMA NEGRA
Ya me canso de llorar y no amanece
Yo no se si maldecirte o por ti rezar,
Tengo miedo de buscarte y encontrarte
Donde me aseguran mis amigos que te vas.
Hay momentos en que quisiera mejor rajarme
Pa’arrancarme ya los clavos de mi penar,
Pero mis ojos se mueren sin mirar tus ojos
Y mi cariño hoy con locura te vuelve a buscar.
Y agarraste por tu cuenta la parranda,
Paloma negra, paloma negra dónde estarás
Ya no juegues con mi honra parrandera,
si tus caricias han de ser mías y de nadie más.
Y aunque te amo con locura ya no vuelvas,
Paloma negra tu eres la causa de mi sufrir,
Quiero ser libre, vivir mi vida con quien yo quiera,
Dios dame fuerzas que me estoy muriendo por irla a buscar.
………………………..
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L’Origine du monde
Gustave Courbet Autoportrait
Courbet fut un artiste révolutionnaire qui se moqua des conventions et s’opposa toujours à l’académisme. Sa grandeur est sans doute d’avoir porté en lui une vision réaliste et poétique du monde.
“Etre à même de traduire les moeurs, les idées, l’aspect de mon époque selon mon appréciation, être non seulement un peintre, mais encore un homme. En un mot, faire de l’art vivant, voilà mon but “.
Se révèle ainsi la soumission d’un homme à la nécessité impérieuse de l’artiste : représenter la réalité dans ce qu’elle a de plus propre, sa complexité infinie, son ambiguïté constitutive, qui tantôt se déchaîne, tantôt s’apaise, alanguie au creux d’un drap. Plus question, donc, de détourner les yeux quand Courbet nous prend à partie, nous exhorte à nous confronter au fondement de ce qui nous fait être, à ce moment intense et lumineux de révélation au monde. Son style réaliste et ancré dans la matérialité, son goût de ne peindre que pour créer une oeuvre plastique et puissante, lui valurent de violentes critiques et il fut surnommé avec malveillance ‘le chef de file de l’école du laid’. Ses nus furent également jugés indécents par une époque qui aimait que la nudité soit idéalisée et non pas montrée sous un angle sensuel et charnel : on retient bien sûr le tableau ‘L’ Origine du monde’…
L’Origine du monde – Gustave Courbet – 1866
‘L’Origine du monde’ n’a rien perdu de son pouvoir sidérant et malaisant. Impossible d’y échapper, le tableau, sexe en cadrage serré, sans fioriture ni aucune des allégories généralement dévolues à ce genre, est un fragment choc et une image de pure provocation, une forme de vérité à laquelle on n’échappe pas quand on lui fait face. Auscultation, scrutation, fétichisme, examen anatomique, le spectateur ne sait trop où se situer, et c’est ce trouble qui se précipite vers lui à toute vitesse, d’autant que la position du corps de la femme anonyme, jambes écartées selon un angle à 90 degrés, donne une forte impression de perspective tandis que la chair contraste crûment avec la crinière noire qui surmonte la fente du sexe, elle-même comme une fêlure dans le tableau: un coup de ciseau sombre dans notre regard.
(Antoine de Baecque)
Voilà l’histoire de la création, de la disparition puis de la réapparition de l’un des tableaux les plus mystérieux de l’art Occidental? Plus nu que nu, ce tableau à la vérité radicale fascine toujours. Quelle est l’origine de ‘L’Origine du monde’ ? Est-ce bien à la demande du diplomate et collectionneur turc, le mécène érotomane Khalil Bey, que Gustave Courbet peint ce « nu le plus nu » en 1866 ? Est-ce la maîtresse de l’artiste, celle du diplomate, ou plus simplement une fille de joie, qui est ici magnifiée pour l’éternité ? Le mystère demeure. A peine achevé, le tableau disparaît et reste invisible pendant de longues années. On le croit détruit, puis on retrouve sa trace à Budapest. Mais l’œuvre sulfureuse reste cachée aux regards… Considérée comme obscène au XIXe siècle, vendue sous le manteau, longtemps dissimulée par un ingénieux système de double-fond -Jacques Lacan lui-même, le célèbre psychanalyste, un temps possesseur du tableau dans les années 50, demandera à André Masson de peindre une autre toile par dessus ! – le destin de ‘L’Origine du monde’ est de se dérober sans cesse. C’est seulement en 1995, après une longue traque d’amateurs et de collectionneurs et une campagne de presse intense pour faire monter la pression, que le tableau de Courbet entre dans les collections du Musée d’Orsay et devient réellement accessible au public. Véritable manifeste du réalisme en peinture, ‘L’Origine du monde’ reste un tableau terriblement provocant, un geste subversif qui n’a rien perdu de sa puissance.
Courbet – Photographie de Nadar
Déconcertant de sincérité, n’hésitant pas à se contredire en apparence par refus des idées reçues, avec une foi toute romantique en l’émotion, son guide presque infaillible, Courbet que la légende décrit comme un hâbleur de brasseries, porte dans sa peinture une horreur intransigeante du mensonge. Il aime mieux paraître gauche ou négligent, se voir reprocher ses «erreurs» de perspective et d’anatomie, la raideur et l’âpreté de ses figures, que de s’en remettre à des formules. Ces dispositions le rendent évidemment extrêmement vulnérable et expliquent ce continuel va-et-vient entre un optimisme de façade et une secrète tendance à l’abattement. Toute sa vie Courbet a cultivé son indépendance (artistique, sociale et familiale) et la liberté qui en découle a toujours eu son pendant: la solitude.
Son naturel optimiste, cache une sensibilité à fleur de peau. Il s’analysait finement dans une lettre à Alfred Bruyas, son ami et protecteur des années 1850, en disant:
Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite“Avec ce masque riant que vous me connaissez, je cache à l’intérieur le chagrin, l’amertume et une tristesse qui s’attache au coeur comme un vampire”.
une lampe au fond des mers
Pour James, mon ami-coeur, mon ami-frère, mon ami sans détour…
« je suis celui qui se lave les mains avant d’écrire
ne me demande pas comment je m’appelle
je n’ai pas de nom»
photo antoine tempé
une lampe au fond des mers
La bohémienne endormie
ta voix du bout du monde
me battant le tambour au bout du coeur
je respire ta sève qui me tourmente
dans une aurore de feuilles vertes
de feuilles qui se jettent
par des feintes de colibris blessés à mort
le soleil que m’invente tes seins
m’éclaire en pays de rêves d’allumettes
souffre qu’à la lune je colle une aile
pour maintenir juste équilibre
et que je pose une lampe
chaude confidence
dans un fond caché de la mer
james noël
une lampe au fond des mers
“Le sang visible du vitrier”
“Dans « Le sang visible du vitrier », James Noël nous donne à voir et à aimer le monde — le sien — qu’il transfigure par la magie de son verbe. La noirceur peut devenir beauté quand le poète la nomme:
Je suis poète
Sans chapeau d’île
Pour dire l’amour brisé aux vitres
Le vieux temps mort sur un pays
La nuit des temps d’années-lumière …
Un vent salé nous vient du large avec la poésie de James Noël. Poésie toujours à double tranchant, sensuelle et tendre, violente et douce, âpre et sensible, poésie généreuse, soucieuse d’avancer, de partager le lot commun avec ses frères de peine, d’étarquer cette voile déchirée, celle de l’espoir d’un monde meilleur, sans cesse à construire et dont les mots du poète sont souvent les premières pierres :
Mon métier mis en bouteille
Mon château de verre
De mots trop tristes pour la sauvegarde
De l’image de marque des cicatrices
Et de blessures à domicile
A la portée de tous
à la santé du monde. “
Jacques Taurand
“Le vitrier, celui qui fabrique et pose les vitres, a besoin d’engagement, d’embrasement et de clarté. Métier de la transparence, donc de gens de bonne volonté, aux mains propres, à la personnalité nette comme la couleur du sang !
« je suis celui qui se lave les mains avant d’écrire »
………………………………….
James Noël est le poète du dire de haut vol, de l’éloquence souveraine, laconique, révoltée et belle. Et quelle limpidité dans cette aventure qui est à la fois sens, beauté, et éthique du dire et du faire ! Aussi en exergue (du recueil) lit-on cet extrait d’un verset du Coran :
«Je pensais toujours qu’il me faudrait un jour rendre compte »…”
Rodney St Eloi
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