A film by Benoît Labourdette
What is poetry?
Yves Bonnefoy (1923-2016) is one of the great French poets.
Auxilio Alcantar had a conversation with him in 2013.
Here is an excerpt:
« What is poetry, at its deepest level? »
« Poetry is the radical questioning of all systems
of representation of the world or existence,
because as systems, precisely,
these thoughts are closed on networks of concepts,
whereas these are abstractions that substitute
simple schemas for really existing beings,
and lose sight, therefore, of what is essential:
namely, that each of us
will only live for a time and only live once.
It is in this field of our lives,
under the sign of this essential finiteness,
that we have to understand life and try to give it meaning,
and thought by concept,
however useful it may be to arrange our place on earth,
must therefore be recognized as dangerous,
what poetry knows how to see, and undertakes to teach.
Through rhythms that restore to words the powers
of which deprive them of their reduction to the sole conceptual meaning,
it frees the word from this situation of exile,
it allows us to be in the world,
or at least to know that we are not really there,
lucidity that is already beneficial".
Yves Bonnefoy
thoughts and words Yves Bonnefoy
interlocutor Auxilio Alcantar
film, images and music Benoît Labourdette
thanks to Auxilio Alcantar and Myriam Drosne
2018