The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

FRANCK ANDRÉ JAMME

In the Limpid Air

Some say: look at what’s happening behind the scenes.
How lovely, all this machinery working!
All these inhibitions, these phantasms, these desires reflected upon their own
history. All this technology of the seductive. How lovely!
Alas, I have always loved, with great passion, these moments where nothing
works any more. These states of disarticulation of the global system, which
presage a fate rather than a moment, which suggest an eternity elsewhere denied.
The genius of the species passes on. It is di≈cult to found an ethic of life on such
exceptional presuppositions, I know. But we are here, precisely for di≈cult cases.
We are now living as if on mesas in California, dizzying platforms separated by
the void; the nearest neighbor is a hundred meters away, but remains visible
anyway, in the limpid air (and you can read the impossibility of any reunification
on every face). Now we are living like monkeys at the opera, mumbling and
moving about in unison. Up there somewhere, a melody passes by.
—mary ann caws

Franck André Jamme 1947–

clermont-ferrand, france

J

amme has published widely, and produced several limited editions of po-

etry illustrated by such artists as James Brown, Olivier Debré, Zao Wou Ki,

and Marc Couturier. His work has been praised by Henri Michaux and

René Char, who asked him to oversee publication of Char’s complete works in

the Bibliothèque de la Pléiade (1983). Jamme, who lives with the painter and poet

Valérie-Catherine Richez, works in both Burgundy and Paris. He currently serves

as a consulting curator for contemporary Indian art. John Ashbery recently

translated his Récitation de l’oubli into English. The poets appeared together on

the French television show Canapé to discuss what makes a poet modern. Prin-

cipal works: L’Ombre des biens à venir, 1981; Absence de résidence et pratique du

songe, 1985; La Récitation de l’oubli, 1986; Pour les simples, 1987; Bois de lune, 1990;