André Velter

Etre Ailleurs

Language: french

Translations: german (Anderswo sein)

Etre Ailleurs

Je n’ai guère le goût des cimetières
ni des ossements célèbres du Pète Lachaise,
de Montmartre ou du Montparnasse ;
à la mise en terre et aux tombes
j’ai toujours préféré les cendres jetées au vent.
Mais dans Paris vagabondant, j’aime qu’il y ait
des présences ravivées sur les murs :
Bossuet à mi-pente de la rue Sainte-Anne,
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin inconscient de naître quasiment rue Molière
comme Arouet d’expirer quai Voltaire...

Entre toutes les plaques pourtant celle qui m’enchante
décore une triste façade rue de Richelieu :
Ici Stendhal écrivit les Promenades dans Rome.

Kovalam, 7 janvier 2003.

André Velter

photo © private

* 01.02.1945, Signy l'Abbaye dans les Ardennes, France
lives in: , France

André Velter was born in 1945 in Signy l’Abbaye in Ardennes, France. He published his first book Aisha, with Serge Sautreau.

André Velter splits his time between extensive trips (Afghanistan, India, Tibet) and giving voice to poems from all over the world. On the French radio station France-Culture, he created Poésie sur Parole. He also hosted Agora (from 1995 to 1998), Poésie Studio (from 1997 to 1999), and les Poétiques, recorderd monthly in front of a live audience at the Théatre du Rond-Point in Paris, with Claude Guerre (from 1995 to 1999). Orphée Studio, contemporary poetry read out loud, presented a “livre-témoignage” on the experience of Poétiques, which was published as part of the collectioin Poésie/Gallimard. Velter’s literary reviews that appear in the French newspaper Le Monde are focused mainly on the East. He is the editor of the collection Poésie/Gallimard, l’arbalète, and the journal Caravanes published by Phébus. All of his poetic works are dedicated to “breathing, revolt, savge love, and to physical and mental jubilation.” He is equally invested in the oral tranmission of words, and attempts to invent a new orality by working regularly with performers, actors, and musicians of various polyphonies.

photo © private

He won the Goncourt/ Poésie prize in 1996.

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