The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

Marcelin Pleynet 1933–

lyon, france

P

leynet is a historian, essayist, art critic, and prolific poet. Along with

Philippe Sollers, he was the director and executive o≈cer of the review

Tel quel (1962–1982). Publishing such writers as Julia Kristeva, Roland

Barthes, Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Luce Irigaray, the review was the

primary outlet for emerging poststructuralist thought in the 1960s and 1970s.

After 1982, Pleynet and Sollers shifted their participation to another review,

L’Infini. From 1987 to 1998 Pleynet held the aesthetics chair at the École nationale

supérieure des beaux-arts de Paris. Principal works: Provisoires amants des nègres,

1962; Paysages en deux, suivis de Les Lignes de la prose, 1964; Comme, 1965; Lessives

du loup, 1966; L’Enseignement de la peinture, 1971; Fragments de choeur: Vers et

proses, 1984; Plaisir à la tempête, 1987; Art de voir, art d’écrire, 1988; Les Modernes

et la tradition, 1990.

In the Daylight

I am transparent, she says. Transparent like the sounds of dawn. I am the
mirror, I stand aside

—and in the valley a milky morning pushes the shores of river to the thresh-
old, to the roofs of the houses soft with sleep

—at its birth, the day is divided between the gladness of the meadow and the
late light of the pool

I am she says, I am in the light of day

—mary ann caws