is a discreet poet. In 1924, aged 19 years old, he published a collection of poems of love in a gay magazine he founded with some friends without Journal Title .
This collection contains 13 poems, preceded by a preface by Guy Levis Mano, dated January 10, 1924. Under the auspices of Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde, he presents his book as a duty of memory. A English friend he loved committed suicide. He published the poems he has left:
I knew his body perfect, everything has to decline, according to the caress of male to male.
He put all his poems in his quivering sensuality, all the tumult of the spasms that grew impatient with him.
I did my work friend.
Now I let you go into this work, with some excerpts I have chosen, and 10 woodcuts by Lucien Lovel (Gaston Poulain) that illustrate these poems. I let you taste a little sad grace and lightness of these poems, poems about love and separation, the desire and weariness on oblivion and back. Reading them, we must remember they were written by a young man of 18, even 17 years for some of them. I also let you taste the charm of these drawings of young people languishing in the 20s style. Each print is an echo of a poem.
Pessimism
Tomorrow or after tomorrow ...
one day ... we will cross the same path.
you pinch your lips with an effort ...
on your cheek, nothing ... Perhaps a red short ...
you hide your eyes coldly,
forgetting that our bodies full of desires haggard
have known, that the Supreme spasm
was deeply vibrate in the same
embrace, our flesh and our members glued
in our mouths clenched, mingled our sighs
two people unnerved
our breaths were one under
the panting of common enjoyments.
You will forget all that ... You say, leaning
to your companion, probably my replacement,
melancholy tone and graceful face:
"You know, that one is an old collage."
So we give the most intimate self,
the weakest of his being: his faith,
to get to that! ... God it's stupid! Come
do not get angry, let your head
on me ... That one day I will be nothing
for you, just a few of your past ... Come on, give me your
lips .. . I'm bad, eh!
Forgive me, it's a bit of nervousness.
not think any more than the sole pleasure of
we feel like ... I switch off the light? ...
But yes, I believe you, it must be because I love you.
I joked, you know. I do not believe a word
of what I have to say ... Am I stupid!
But if I am a fool ... Kiss me again ...
You love me? ... true ... Me, you know, I adore you,
and we will love you long time see,
as long as we can, right? ...
The hermaphrodite
I1 dream of the glories of Imperial Rome, to
ephebes equivocal, with fiery Caesars
the Masters are giving their male officers
carmine on the lips and cheek paint.
He dreams to the August succubus Heliogabalus,
raising a magnificent altar to the phallus, the ignoble
Nero, the perfect love: his slave crying
Hadrian Antinous. He dreams
effeminate young men of Athens,
building proud, strong arms warriors ...
The teenager closes her eyes ... the night is full of desire
ecstatic perfume fever.
Ah! among the scents in jubilation in the park, in this solitude
have ample and serene, his eyes on
exalted tenderness of a glance over his mouth
passion hot breath! ...
The teenager dreams of a wonderful man,
infinitely soft and manly as the wildlife.
He sleeps a great lake in her wide eyes who
sad and faded color of autumn ...
Man caressing his head with his long fingers, and
slowly, passionately, his lips
know are startled in his flesh the spasms deep
and tell her heart a sweet delirium ...
Spasm
No, do not worry, I will not cold, no matter that I am
discovered
because your body is very close to me, and
I feel feverish your flesh ...
Come ... let me give your mouth.
No, not like that, you're brutal.
I do not want the fierce kisses
tonight, fondling hurt.
But give me your lips still ...
Like when your panting breath! Like
your breath. Inside there is sleeping a little
your sweet troubled soul.
Inside there sleeps a bit of your soul, but it's in your
cerulean eyes, beneath your eyelids
who swoon
it still reflects the best!
[...]
Oh! I love you very much tonight.
But if ever I love you very much.
tonight your eyes are like gems,
and brilliance makes my mad desire.
And I want in the short-lived death
ineffably forget everything ...
Ah! Tie me tight against your body ...
Félio! ... Félio !.....
And then one day ...
And then one day forever, you see,
we are no longer together, is expected ...
Our hot and passionate embraces
have been fleeting as the leaves wilted ... The Past
color will die ...
And our hearts are vibrant dreams while others ...
Your lips have lost their taste for pink
in the tumult of gloomy recollections ...
You will have forgotten that mine were good,
And it will be the same lewd gestures
calling other lips, other hugs ...
And yet you're here and hug quivering
and our bodies are united, for it seems forever
...
And we do love him more! ...
There 'will be over the heartfelt tenderness of our flesh ...
There will be more - is irretrievable - that
haunting perfume
ineffable things that were unspeakable a time ...
There may also be
remorse for having betrayed a little self-
who groan softly to not to be dead! ...
Illusions
It would no longer come to him, he would
, and his voice nonchalant
seems mannered and sing tiny,
he would tell me the lyrics disturbing
things sweet and subtle heart to know
serious drag their caress ... Then
light on my eyelashes lowered
traces of tears still wet,
he would say, and his voice is wistful, melancholy as the nightingale
the Threnody Vesper ... it say:
Little Guyto, your eyes are red, you're sad, and I am
who made you cry ... more
But never will you be sad
I swear, little Guyto ... I'm back.
Forgive me ... I was crazy ... Will, I love you ."...
And me, I hurt my eyes
to stem the tears that insist
before his eyes color of heaven ...
Guy Levis Mano
(1904-1980), usually known by his initials GLM was also an active editor and founder of numerous magazines, publishing many poets of his time. In his work, he clung to the quality of typography, not hesitating to innovate and explore new paths, ensuring the alliance of text and illustration.
Like humans, Guy Levis Mano homosexuality remained discreet. This first collection of poems will remain unique in his career. This is probably why neither the man nor his work are usually cited, even if the main bibliographies homosexuals do not forget it. And yet, in the French literature, poetry homosexual, especially one that asserted itself, was still very marginal in the early twentieth century e . Guy Levis Mano therefore a pioneer, just as a new gay consciousness, more assertive, is emerging after the First World War. Proust had just died and Sodom and Gomorrah had appeared in 1921. Andre Gide and Jean Cocteau, were publishing their works in which homosexuality clearly asserted themselves who wanted to be seen, beginning to want to "dare say his name." But Guy Levis Mano was then a complete stranger, this book was probably printed in very small numbers, with a distribution very private. Then, Guy Levis Mano seems to have remained away from the circles very active in the Gay Paris between the wars. For proof, Gilles Barbedette and Michel Carassou do not cite in their bibliography Paris Gay 1925. He also stayed out of the surrealist movement, which probably explains his fame still discreet. However, it has its admirers and continues to arouse great interest among those interested in all the artisans and Text book.
Illustrator Gaston Poulain, who signs his drawings under the name of Lucien Lovel, belonged to the circle of friends by Guy Lévis-Mano. I have not managed to find out more.
For those wishing to know more about the work and the work of Guy Lévis-Mano, the website of the Association Guy Lévis-Mano is a mine of information. It will be seen as little space that homosexuality is on its way of life, at least publicly: click here.
I extracted this is beautiful photography:
Description of structure
Paris, untitled Journal, Publisher, 1924, in square-12, XII-81 - [5] pp., 10 full-page illustrations in the text including a frontispiece, double blankets, first illustrated cover.
This book is particularly rare. The reference 3-e edition on the cover must not be misleading. This is a dummy statement. There are only two copies in public libraries in France: one in the BNF and the other in the library of the Arsenal. The Journal
untitled published by GLM, seems to have had only 2 issues.
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