The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

Pierre-Albert Jourdan 1924–1981

paris, france

J

ourdan spent his entire professional career as chief of the Paris public

transportation system. Although he published very little during his life-

time, his friends included such notable literary figures as Henri Michaux

and René Char; the latter inspired his first poetry collection in 1961. In 1975

Jourdan founded the journal Port-des-singes, which attracted contributions by

Yves Bonnefoy, Lorand Gaspar, Philippe Jaccottet, and Jacques Réda. Jourdan’s

paintings and photographs were collected in a volume entitled simply Pierre-

Albert Jourdan (1984). He died in Caromb, in the Vaucluse. Principal works: La

Langue des fumées, 1961; Le Matin, 1976; Fragments, 1979; L’Angle mort, 1980;

L’Entrée dans le jardin, 1981; Les Sandales de paille (preface by Yves Bonnefoy),

1987; Le Bonjour et l’adieu (preface by Philippe Jaccottet), 1991.

Speak...

You have to leave this space to its own fruition. You don’t enter it, it sends
itself before you but the interview is silent. Speak, if you like, through the voice
of a tree or a grass; that is: don’t practice imposture, don’t mix your mind into
what is so pure.
Give up this guidance which will rot in the ground; be just the resonance of
the arrow endlessly traversing you.
—mary ann caws

Prayer

Let innocence remain
let it know how to be lost in the uselessness of this world
let it be strong enough to forget to say that
let there be no obstacle to its silence in the silence where it shines
let it lift this tired world and dance in its dust
let its flower smile be inscribed always on my lips when they become
frost
let it be innocence forever.
Let no one wanting to leap out from the mire seize it