The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

JEAN-MICHEL MAULPOIX

his leather headpiece, it means he has felt an opening, and you don’t have any
choice: you take o√ his mask, undo the wire from his foot, and there he is, o√.
The least thing shining somewhere won’t last long. And you know quite surely
what he finds and kills, for he brings it back to you. But what he really saw over
there, that thing shouting with life and light, you’ll always see it wrong: you can
only describe the prey he lays down right now at your feet—still murmuring,
true, but already from the other shore. In short, you are blind. Your hunt, just a
simple gathering. And yet, this bird, you don’t have the slightest memory of his
rustling through the air, nor the curve of his flight. Because he is in you. You have
never been able to find exactly where, but it all happens in you.
—mary ann caws

Jean-Michel Maulpoix 1952–

montbéliard, france

M

aulpoix is a poet, essayist, and literary critic. He has notably writ-

ten on fellow poets Henri Michaux, Jacques Réda, and René Char.

Additionally, he has produced several general essays on poetry. In

1993 he cofounded the Centre de recherche sur la création poétique with Yves

Charnet. Currently, Maulpoix teaches modern and contemporary poetry at the

École normale supérieure de Fontenay Saint-Cloud and at the Sorbonne Paris

VII. He also directs and edits the journal Le Nouveau Recueil, published by

Champ Vallon. Principal works: Portraits d’un éphémère, 1990; Une histoire de

bleu, 1992; L’Écrivain imaginaire, 1994; La Poésie malgré tout, 1996; Domaine

public, 1998; La Poésie comme l’amour, 1998; L’Instinct du ciel, 2003.

The Giving Birth

1.

Patience of angels sleeping amid the sky’s blue casings. Patience of gods above
the dripstone, at the obtuse angle formed by stars and earth...