These Flying Islands

 GREETINGS FROM FRANCE.... Salut aux amis de la communauté FLYING ISLANDS ! 

Béatrice MACHET 

BIO

 

Béatrice (Anne-Marie, Marie-Jeanne) Machet is a French born poet, living between France and the USA, whose dance lessons as a child influenced and still influence her writing. As a teen she learned a lot from the Native American point of view about Native American history and Native cultures, until she felt impregnated with them. After having been involved in the French science-fiction milieu, flirting with cartoons and magazines such as Actuel, Charlie Hebdo, Fluide Glacial, she met Jean-Hughes Malineau, a Gallimard editor, who encouraged her to begin a career as a poet. From this initial meeting, each published poetry book of hers will testify to an evolution in her writing practice. Since 2016, she is an active member of the sound poetry group Ecrits Studio (ecritsstudio.fr). At her credit some 15 books and 30 chapbooks of poetry (three of them in English) plus 7 Native American poets’ collections she translated into French, and four anthologies gathering 40 Native American contemporary poets whom works she translated into French.

She is used to collaborating with artists from all kinds of disciplines such as painters, sculptors, musicians, composers, video-makers, dancers and choreographers, and with whom she performs her poetry. She is on editorial boards of French poetry magazines such as Recours au poème, Sur le dos de la tortue, Les cahiers d’Eucharis.

She is regularly granted writer residences, is regularly invited in international poetry festivals in France and abroad. She leads creative writing workshops, is called for teaching and performing in schools and colleges. She gives lectures and conferences about contemporary Native American literature. She also launched and created Radio cultural programs, poetry oriented, from 1984 to 1986 and from 2018 to nowdays. She is responsible of and produces a monthly radio program (Radio Agora, Grasse) dedicated to contemporary poetry.

 

Partial Bibliography- poetry exclusively

– Dire, éditions Clapas, 1998, forewords by Patrick Joquel
–Tunkashila unshimala yé ( imprégnation peau-rouge ) 1999, éditions Clapas (recorded and performed on an original music by composer Jacques Dudon) ,
– J …., éditions L’Amourier (poetry) 1999
– Eye-liner, 1999, éditions Clapas, with afterwords by Armand Olivennes
– Dyptique, 2000, éditions Clapas with forwords by Alain Jégou
– De quoi s’étonner encore de vivre, 2000, éditions Encres Vives
– Aspects de la poésie contemporaine des Indiens d’Amérique du nord, 2001, L’Amourier 2001
– Dans l’atelier d’Henri Baviera, 2001, Le Garage (MDLC 2 place Auriol 83510 Lorgues.)
– Dédicace, 2002, éditions La porte
– Canku (the way in Lakota language) with painter Gérard Serée, 2002, atelier Gestes et Traces 2002
– Muer, 2003, poetry, éditions L’Amourier
– Passage au méridien, 2003, éditions I.H.V
– L’essor et l’écart,2004, atelier Tactiles with painter Corine Léridon
– La sentinelle, 2004, atelier Tactiles with painter Corine Léridon
– DVD- painter Violette Adjimanand poet Beatrice Machet, 2004, centre d'art SEBASTIEN (LB productions)
– Tribus, 2005, Atelier Gestes et Traces with painter Gérard Serée
– Retentir, 2006, with painter Youl
– Lumières, 2007, with painter Youl
– Le felo va parler, 2007, bilingual chapbook, Amastra-n-Gallar (Galicia España)
– Lacérer, 2007, éditions La Porte
– Der de Dre, 2008, éditions Voix
– Possible, 2008, with painter Youl
– Ouest-Nord-LAZA-Est-Sud, 2009, bilingual chapbook, Amastra-n-galar)
– Une poire pour William, 2009, with painter Youl
– Marge, 2009, éditions IHV
– Melisma, 2010, éditions SD with painter Sylvie Deparis
– Venus rising (poetry anthology 2009, The Bass Press, R and R editors,

– Hadziin, 2010 (The one Who Speaks in Apache Language), CD, poetry spoken words  with composer Michel Chaupin
– ACCOM(plissements), 2011, CD,  poetry performance recorded while granted a writer residency at « la maison de la poésie transjurassienne ».  
– Le livre M, 2013, crafted book exhibited at la maison de l’artisanat d’art in Marseille and in la maison Carré in Nîmes.

– Macao, A Grey Epic (bilingual), 2014, ASM Press
– Les Gens-pierre, 2014, with painter Henri Baviera
– Les Lacets, 2014, atelier Gestes et Traces, with painter Gérard Serée
– Rupture en quatre leçons, 2014, éditions Approches
– For Unity (bilingual), 2015, Pocket Book, ASM Press
– Salse sans pareille, 2016, éditions Le petit véhicule
– Du dernier souffle, 2017, éditions du Frau
– Les mots fendre, 2017, éditions Lieux Dits

– Der de Dre addendum, 2017, éditions Voix

–Jamais le dernier souffle, 2018, éditions Peycervier, with Painter Henri Baviera

– Tirage(s) de Tête(s), 2019, éditions les Lieux Dits

– Crypto, 2019, bilingual, with poet Dominique Hecq, Pocket Book-ASM Press

–After Gertrude Stein, coming out date April 2021, Dancing Girl Press

 

***************************************

NEW WORK - (in progress, just a beginning) 

 

QUEST-ION(ing)S OF TIME

 

1 )

 

Was it a-

       or b-

              fore….

                           thus I hit the slopes of the alphabet

a true bare-footed race

with faux-pas on slippy pebbles

the very one I spitted

after having practised

tongue-twisters

and breathing exercises …

there followed a free ride

a screeching slalom

between letter-poles

a super-giant choreography

as if a baited tale was told

in the tracks of caged slides 

as if a vision

could heal sounds and meanings

through a world record expression

 

 

2 )

 

« One exerts power

                       over time

when one masters distance »

very well then

deciding to keep its distances

staying away from ticking and stopwatch

my tongue exerts power.

 

But are words manageable

as for language

… when is it fully realized ?

 

when is it born

with its flow of blood and tears

from a womb called self ?

 

and how the speed factor

gives a voice its energy… ?

 

Relatively intruder enough

flesh

in the form of larynx and palate

is the poem made power

sung

and blown out like a mushroom cloud.

 

 

3 )

 

this is a tiny here

this is a vast now

on a crest of wavy time when

every second is sup-

posed to up-

sidedown your mind-will

which is swallow-

ed sliding and plunging in-

to an ocean of enzymes and acid

so that every protein of it is broken down

when your lop-

sided stomach is digesting prim-

al scream till it is dis-

mantled and pour-

ed down the guts

 

a creepy wreckage stuck

in what will be its last curly den

and then …