Obscure Poetry by Anne Bertrand

OBSCURE POETRY
By Anne Bertrand.

One day Henri Foucault saw, and seen photographed, a collection of Têtes (« heads »), namely some twenty plaster casts going back perhaps a century. Nothing was known about them except that the models had been natives of Madagascar, and that had been picked out by a Frenchman who was passing through the island. He also photographed the exotic Coquillages (« Shells ») that one of this friends had gathered, and put a number of them into coherent, hypnotic, dazzling systems called Rayonnés (« Radiated »). To these he added several showers-or scattering, phosphorescent bouquets- of Etoiles (« Stars ») in Rayographs, and at least one Autoportrait (« Self-portrait »), which was punched full of small holes and, as always, in black and white. Others have written about the close, fruitful and long-standing relations a certain idea of modernity- the agitation that was generated by L’Étoile de mer (« The starfish »). On account of Madagascar, I call on Paulhan, who lived there, became a little more himself there, and quoted this hain-teny : « Song of the pair of guinea-hens far from Andringitra ; their bodies are there, but their hearts keep repeating to themselves what is happening back there ».
The Têtes, thus brought to light, are the real revelation of this exhibition, as live manifestations of human beings in their individuality, despite the depth of the mystery that has since accumulated, and the almost total anonymity ; and, above all, despite the acute violence of the procedure, wich is visible still. These casts were made from living beings in order to obtain the latters’ effigies in plaster : sculptures that were later mounted on low stands, each with an inscription giving the corresponding ethnic origin (and, it would seem, with tickets hanging from pieces of string). What really happened, that we are unaware of ? There was a traumatic event ; physically, such an operation is an ordeal. But beyond that it is profound way, threatening their integrity. Not all these mute beings lent themselves to it willingly. Most resisted, in differents ways ; one can sense that from the eyelids, which are lowered like closed lips, with inner tension ; a contradiction of foreheads and jaws ; the closure, or reserve, of reluctantly-consenting faces ; though there are also those who appear somewhat resigned, almost detached, or more serene, almost pacified ; and there is one, Maravi, who actually appears to be smiling. « The Hova are distinguished, gente land silent. In general, they are too gentle for work. But in the street, they accept a pickaxe as though they were being given a flower ». Looking at their faces, it is clear enough that they have known pain. What kind of pain i twas, we cannot know. Traces of it remain, accentuated by the state of the casts, wich have been negleted, ill-used, scuffed. Nut these men are here, paradoxically, thanks to the images themselves, these new portraits wich were done without their agreement, yet wich, after the passage of so much time, give them back their presence, but also their dignity ; and this makes them superbly present of us.
« I am going to install a chameleon park in my garden. I will have a hundred of them in the park, wich will be surrounded by a rivulet. It will be very beautiful. Sometimes, I will uter a brutal, frightened cy, and I will se them all slowly turning gry-green. » The Coquillages accompany these Têtes in a sober fashion, as an ornament that is seen without embellishment, discreet and silent. The object of curiosity for the Western eye is laid out flat here and observed scientifically in the grey roughness of its reliefs, the light-coloured mother-of-pearl of its open edges an dits gaping, sombre secret, right up to the abstraction of the motif, which is to some extent belied by the overturning, the gyration and the porthole device, as though at a distance beneath the moving bottom of the water, out at sea.
« The paths are full of white butterflies that fly almost without changing place. They are looking for flowers, but for another butterfly. And when they have found one, they fly a little together, and look at each other. » As to the spiky sea-urchins and their bare shells, concretions of coral, minuscule unicorn’s horns, white, radiant, connected together in the Rayonnés, they propose, in counterpoint to the matt yellow and blue chessboard, an articuled, changing dream, divagation ; optical effects built up, beyond the rational, into a brief fantasy ; the one that is offered to the Têtes as a second spectacle, a redress, a tribute that has arrived too late and from too far away, that these men will never receive, ever-none of them.
« As soon as I start talking to Iketaka, she looks quite lost. She is completely enceloped in her large coat, sitting on her feet ; and only her head, which looks very large, can be seen. But she is also hiding her head in her coat.
« But as soon as she starts to answer me, she lifts up her head in a natural way. She talks to me in such a piosed, tranquil manner that I, in turn, feel intimitated. And I quickly start talking again. » To see these images is to find out what ones does not know : the most luminous points in a constellation that has been spread out deliberately in absolute blackness. « It is at one and the same time elusive and infernally clear. It is, quite precisely, what one calls a spectre ; and when we come right down to it, all this is familiar to us. » Which appens-the miracle-when one loses the habit.

The quotations are taken from Jean Paulhan’s Cahiers Jean Paulhan n°2 : Jean Paulhan et Madagascar 1908-1910 (Paris, Éditions Gallimard 1982), and Aytré qui perd l’habitude (Le Revest-les-eaux, Éditions Spectres familiers, 1988).

Anne Bertrand