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Songs secrets, Jean Genet, 1945 "The Condemned to Death"

Love come on my mouth! Love opens your doors! Traverse
corridors, shoot, light walking,
Fly on the stairs, more flexible than a shepherd,
More supported by an air flight leaves.

through O the walls if necessary walking along
roofs, oceans, cover yourself with light,
Use of threat, use of prayer,
But come, my frigate an hour before my death.

While he was incarcerated in Fresnes for stealing books in September 1942, Jean Genet wrote his first poem, The sentenced to death. This long poem is dedicated Alexandrian "Mauritius Pilorge, murderer of twenty years": "I dedicated this poem to the memory of my friend Maurice Pilorge whose body and radiant face haunt my nights without sleep. In spirit I saw with him forty days he spent, the chains on their feet and sometimes the wrists, in cell on death row in the prison of Saint-Brieuc. [...] For me, who knew him and loved him, I am here, as gently as possible, tenderly, said he was dignified by the double and single splendor of his soul and his body, having the benefit of such a death. "

Jean Genet had printed the poem by a fellow inmate, typographer by trade, convicted of making false ration cards. The estimated first printing of 100 copies was distributed by Jean Genet with the circle of admirers who were beginning to form around him: Jean Cocteau, Francis Sentein, etc..

In November 1943, Jean Genet made the acquaintance of Marc Barbezat, a Lyons industrialist who published a literary magazine The Crossbow . Olga is Barbezat Genet who introduced her husband, after reading this poem. By January 1944, Jean Genet proposes to Marc Barbezat publish The condemned man, with another unpublished poem, Funeral March, under the general title of Chants secrets. This project will not be realized until 1945. Previously, Marce Barbezat publishes a chapter of Our Lady of the Flowers in his magazine. He then printed in March 1945 Songs secret to 402 copies in beautiful airy typography that characterizes all the works of editions of The Crossbow , especially the beautiful harmony of prints in red and black. Marc Barbezat choose a painter and poet, Emile Picq, to illustrate the cover.

The whole poem deserves to be cited. It contains this mixture to Jean Genet's own fascination with evil and crime and homosexual eroticism of the body of the assassin who becomes the object of fantasy and love: "the specter of a killer on the heavy fly."

However, seeing in this poem that this alloy has become a bit banal, crime and erotica, is a simplistic view. First it is a very beautiful text. The reading is captivating. We find this language unique Genet who knows so well combine the purity of a language sometimes a little precious with the rawness and freedom of the scenes mentioned:

Rise up in the air from the moon oh my child. Come
flow into my mouth a little heavy sperm
That rolls from your throat to your teeth, my love, finally
To fertilize our lovely wedding.

Stick your body against mine delighted that dies
OF fuck the most soft and gentle rogues. In weighing your charmed
round balls blondes,
My t'enfile lives of black marble to the heart. This evocation

neighbor with raw poetic dream of escape and love:

O come my sunshine, oh come my night
of Spain arrives in my eyes will be dead tomorrow.
arrives, opens my door, bring me your hand,
Take me away from here beat our campaign.

Heaven can wake up, stars bloom, the flowers
And sigh, and meadow grass black
Greet the morning when the dew is going to drink,
The bell may ring: I alone will die.

O come my pink sky, O my trash blonde!
Visit his night your condemned to death.
Pluck up the flesh, kill, climbing, biting,
But come! Put your cheek against my head round.

We had not finished we talk about love.
We had not finished smoking our gypsy.
One may wonder why the courts condemn
A murderer is so beautiful that day fade.

Another excerpt and illustration of the manner of Jean Genet: fascination, along with religious and pagan, the handsome youth, the murder and the next punishment auréolent become an attraction almost supernatural

And the old assassins pressing for the rite dan
Squatting in the evening take a dry stick
A little fire that flies, active little guy
More poignant and touching a pure dick. The bandit

the hardest in his muscles
polite bows of respect to the frail boy. Monte
the moon in the sky. Calms a quarrel.
Bougent of the mysterious black flag folds.

T'enveloppent so fine, your gestures lace!
A shoulder leaning against the red palm
You smoke. The smoke goes down your throat
While the convicts, in a solemn dance

Graves, silent, in turn, child
Go take a drop on your mouth fragrant,
One drop, not two, round smoke poured their
What your tongue. O brother triumphant

This wealth of evocations of feelings, which traditionally belong to different registers, far from forming a mixed bag, is instead a very large unit, cemented by the single language that makes it a one long poem in praise of the beauty and fascination of men.

The second poem, Funeral March is also dedicated to Maurice Pilorge.

The cover illustration gives a personal touch to this edition. It is signed by Emile Picq. I unfortunately did not manage to find much information about it. He was an illustrator, painter and poet. Francis Ponge has devoted an article published in May 1944 in the Workshop within the contemporary collection painter to study , Paris, Gallimard, NRF, 1948.
There is a single book of him at the BNF:
Fever memories of exile. With drawings by the author. Joyful mystery. Holy Cohort. In a lost city. Departure for exile. Jardin du cri de coeur. Forest dream.
Paris, A. Henneuse, 1942, in-16, 105 p.

All poems Jean Genet was published in the collection Poetry / Gallimard

For those who want to go further on Jean Genet, one of the biographies of reference is that of Edmund White.

It is full of information, accurate and factual. Most of the information, very abstract, and these poems are from this edition.

Finally, I recommend this kit (DVD + CD + booklet). It not only contains the movie A love song, it is essential to have seen all those fascinated by the world of Genet, but also interviews and Jean Genet. The booklet contains a reproduction of the manuscript Sentenced to death

A small personal note

Jean Genet's work, especially Our Lady of the Flowers , was a great discovery, I would almost say an enlightenment of my adolescence. With other literary works, she has contributed to the formation of my conscience homosexual. This is not so much subversive aspect (a bit stale now) or sulfur, which has enriched me, but Genet's fascination for man and homosexual love. This fascination as expressed in their raw state, helped me to understand and live my own fascination, which, today, thirty years later, remains inentamée nor diminished.

The amazing thing is that I just found the poetry of Genet, especially this poem, all because I was first captivated by this beautiful work, this fine example. When I say that love books joined the love of boys is also a love of books allows me to deepen my love of men.

Description of structure

Secret Songs
[Lyon], The Crossbow, 4to (284 x 192 mm), [1945] 45 - [2] pp, folded cover bearing a picture.

A small feature of this book is that the name of the author, with illustrations, is located on the first cover and the title is in the back cover:

Circulation 402 copies:
- 400 numbered copies on pur fil Lafuma, all reserved for subscribers numbered from 1 to 400.
- 2 copies of old Japan reimposed.

BNF has no less than 5 copies, some in the reserve of rare books:

RES. FOL-NFY-14, copy of Peter Leroy

RES DON 4-Z-220 (17), copy of Alberto Magnelli (1888-1971), given by Susi Magnelli

RES LIBR PAB 4-Z-43, gift of Pierre-Andre Benoit (1921-1993)

RES M-YE-529

In other public libraries in France (CCRB), I spotted a single copy at the Library Jacques Doucet (No. 172). Some links

On this site in English, very well Indeed, a message is devoted to the poem The condemned man, with the full transcript, in French, the poem:

Bajo el Signo Libra "The Condemned to Death" Jean Genet

This poem been set to music and sung by Helen Martin:

It was also echoed by Etienne Daho:

Stream Southpark To Iphone

"Twenty lithographs for a book I read," Jean Genet, Roland Caillaux, 1945

It is hard to imagine that there is a little over 70 years, it was almost impossible to get the picture very free, that is pornographic, two men making love. We are now so accustomed to this wave of erotic images that can barely get under the skin of the amateur who had the chance to get some pictures very raw where you could see gender erect , ejaculation, sodomy, ...

The same scarcity was probably a stimulus for these images are neat and beautiful accompanying text. The book I present today is simultaneously a work of art, which combines text, image and typography and a beautiful presentation, with a work in which we find erotic image erotic in the rough.

We do not know who was behind this printed collection in April 1945 when the war was coming to an end. With 19 poems and texts attributed to Jean Genet, Roland Caillaux has represented men, often a little thugs doing love, since the approach, foreplay, scenes of tenderness, to the scenes eroticism, pleasure, then rest.

is not known for earlier work to it that is so erotic. If I wanted to express this in a scholarly, I would say that this is an early printed literature illustrated gay ( incunabula: printed book dating from the early years of printing (before 1500) or by extension, a book of the early years of print homosexual).

These lithographs, with a selection of poems

Transparent traveler windows of the thicket By road
blood back into my mouth
Fingers responsible for the moon and not awake
beat I hear the evening asleep on my couch.

Canaille dare you bite me again
Remember that I am the Monarch of the page
You drive under my hand like a flood in my boat
Your swell fills me , my quail woods

My quail wrapped, crushed beneath my fingers.

Dead. Strangled. O flower of our country
Let your tears on her hips
holly blue tits your nests have them on his neck
And you, my nights are wearing the Golden DIVINE

raucous night vomiting scrapes this side of Sloth
Clichy and ill subjects
Where her lips pursed the furtive meeting
Forget his throat blonde arms of another jet.

The poems are generally attributed to Jean Genet, but he never wanted to acknowledge paternity. However, a number of them will then be included in Parade, published in the collection Poems, published by the the Crossbow in 1948. Other poems, never published elsewhere in this book can be attributed to Jean Genet in style and theme. In the preface itself, we find the spirit of Jean Genet at the time:

is feared and brutal eroticism hopefully. We open these pages and the most tender love you seized the heart, warms and the ice by his funeral banners.
The flesh is sad. Despite the luxury, light, faces, torsos and legs, the most tragic sweetness these drawings are bereaved, that should be though they are fed by the despair of a talented painter sorry. This mysterious expression, flush the line, a great evil in the artist himself would touch me. For the first time we are in front of drawings that tell us again, by the looks behind the scenes, grace a little bit of a soft rather than a loop, and even velvety shadows, tal of these children, which the artist used to confess with shame feel less worthy of the world hates the inversion: tenderness.
from the least gesture of the finger twirling a loop, the shock sensitivity of a knee against another knee, a smile I am gratified , churn the waves of love certainly, but also the most desperate sweetness. The worst artist in an apparent frivolity sadness we learned of these loves, and especially the sadness of sweetness and tenderness itself. Finally, by a miracle that only nature can succeed a deeply tragic, it shows the injury of these bodies, despite their beauty, their strength and glorious immodesty. Their beauty is the same injury that sings love. The tenderness of these kids, it's great ulcer on his face, revealing the strange disease of the artist. That by which we love so much love.

Beyond these award debate, we are in the world of Jean Genet. In 1943, appeared clandestinely Our Lady of the Flowers . The characters, atmosphere, situations occur within twenty lithographs. The world is Divine. Even if the public release of the book had to wait for 1948, the scholars of the time, likely recipients of the comic, already knew Jean Genet and his universe. For those who doubt, Jean Genet itself is represented in his cell, writing Our Lady of the Flowers .

This quote from Jean Genet Our Lady of the Flowers : "For me books they never will be anything but a pretext to show a soldier dressed in blue, an angel Fraternal and be playing dice and bones in a prison dark or light? "Is not this beautifully illustrated by lithography?

Finally on references to Genet's universe, all those who know the beautiful "Song of Love" can only be struck by some similarities between the two worlds.

The allocation of lithographs at Roland Caillaux is generally accepted. We know regrettably little about the illustrator former movie actor. He belonged to the world of Gay Paris which revolved around Jean Cocteau and Jean Genet in the 1940s. It John also found Boullet Maurice Sachs, Francois Sentein, etc.. However, none of the biographies on these individuals does not cite Roland Caillaux. Some information gleaned

:

"mysterious painter, his studio was located rue Boulard, in the fourteenth.

This annuitant, heir of wealthy parents, lived in rue de l'Ancienne Comedie.

He turned a movie the role of an officer of Spahis, and was a hobby, skating and drawing.

He illustrated the "20 lithographs for a book I read" by Jean Genet.

STORY: it moved to bicycle and went to Jean Cocteau, rue Montpensier, the bicycle pump in hand, for fear of being robbed! (Francis Sentein) "

(Source: Gallery happiness of the day )

He was also a film actor. Her filmography:

- The gallery of monsters , 1924, Jacques Cates:

- Tire flank , 1928, Jean Renoir: Sergeant

- Figaro, 1929, Tony Lekain and Gaston Ravel: Avian Sun

- Creek , 1929, Rene Hervil

- Let gays , 1930, Arthur Robison

- The Mask of Hollywood , Clarence G. Badger and John Daumery Bing

- Baroud, 1932 by Rex Ingram and Alice Terry Andre Duval - Sergeant Spahi

- Itto, 1934, Jean Benoit-Levy and Marie Epstein (co-director) : Lieutenant Jean Dumontier

(Source: IMDB)

According to a Russian website (click here ), he was born around 1900 and died in Paris around 1975. He reportedly used the pseudonym Roland Caipland.

Description of structure

Twenty lithographs for a book I read

Paris, 1945, 4to (328 x 255 mm) [88] pp., 20 lithographic plates, blankets flaps printed in black and orange.

is a collection of free double sheets, not numbered. The texts are on the first page of each sheet, the lithographs on the third page. The backs are white.

This collection was printed in 115 numbered copies on Velin de Rives. He is No. 80.

We find traces of some Additional copies:

- Jacques Desse proposed a copy with an original drawing.

- erotic Gérard Nordmann Library - 2 nd part (Paris, Christie's, 14 and 15/12/2006): No. 52

- "A private hell - Collection and Sieglinde Karl Ludwig Leonhardt, Paris, Pierre Bergé , 12/03/2009: 6.

- Marcel Lamazerolles: No. 80

But there is no example in public libraries in France, even at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France.

This book has been reissued by the Gay books Kitsh Camp Gender Issues, No. 33, Lille, 1996. The reproductions are unfortunately not up to the original, but this reissue contains an introduction by Patrick Cardon interesting about this book, which we borrowed some details of this message.