Jean GENET - Autograph poem - Notre Dame and Seck in bed.

Jean GENET – (1910.1986)

Autograph poem.

A ½ page in-4° on squared paper. Slnd (1942).

Typewritten mention Notre Dame and Seck in bed.

Superb prison poem, first draft, with erasures and corrections, composed of three quatrains in alexandrines, linked to the composition of his first novel Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs, published in 1943.

Cathedral with slow steps by my moors come

Under a dark eye, Our Lady of Flowers

Of my death the procession of nocturnal colors

Walk lightly through your gentle avenues.

This Africa is copper where grace is morose.

Note in its flanks the regret of the miners.

They work the wells of this prison of love

Where, breeze, snow, flower, does not arise under their fingers.

On his collar weigh heavy the chains of silence,

This gaunt diver black with the salt of your seas.

The Frost Dancer is his air hero.

I speak, between my teeth the golden iron of the spears.

Jean Genet, poems found in The condemned to death and other poems followed by The tightrope walker – nrf Poésie/Gallimard