Jean Sénac

Jean Sénac Poems

Jean Sénac Biography

Jean Sénac (1926–1973) was an Algerian author. Born of an unknown father in Béni Saf in the Oran region of Algeria, the "poet who signed with a sun", was murdered in Algiers on August 30, 1973. His murder remains unsolved. Besides his poems and writings, he was renowned for a long-running relationship and correspondences with Albert Camus. A portion of his papers are stored at the City Archives in Marseille, France. Jean Sénac was an Algerian francophone poet who remained strongly attached to his Algerian nationality despite the French exodus from Algeria in the aftermath of the war of liberation. His poems were largely songs of revolution, which he hoped would help create a world of beauty and brotherhood in an Algeria that was open to all cultures. His own struggles were strongly linked with his quest to better Algeria through poetry: a profound search for identity, both personal and cultural and his struggle to find acceptance in his homosexuality plagued him throughout his life; "This poor body also/ Wants its war of independence", he once wrote. Sénac was a great admirer of the work of such poets as Gérard de Nerval, Arthur Rimbaud, Antonin Artaud and Jean Genêt. Jean Sénac had a long-running friendship with French Algerian-born writer and Literary Nobel Prize laureate Albert Camus that lasted from 1947 to 1958. The contents of the letters remain mostly unknown, although Hamid Nacer-Khodja published a few and wrote about the history of the friendship in his essay Le Fils rebelle. many correspondences are of a literary nature, but some also discuss the independence movement in Algeria. In April 1958 he broke relations with Albert Camus on a sour note blaming him for not supporting the plight of an Algerian student named Taleb executed for his political activities against the French. He did not communicate further with Camus from that day on until Camus' death early 1960.)

The Best Poem Of Jean Sénac

My People's Early Rising

You were saying easy things;
the hard-working woman of the morning
the forest that grew in your voice
its trees so thick that they tear hearts apart
and know the full weight of song
the warmth of a clearing
for the up-right man who demands
a word of peace
a word of human proportions
You pulled the stalker from his solitude
who steeped in shadows kept you in his sight
the one who wants to write the way you see
the way you sing, the way you weave
and bring the others wheat
goat's milk
flour coarsely ground
and thick in the heart and strong in the blood
the kindness of everyone
and the impetuous charm of men in solidarity.
Speak oh tranquil flower weaver of hope
prelude to the barley's certain awakening
say that soon steel will reject the throat
that soon the douar will deal a blow to the night
You will teach me to think
to live as you live
Torn from the dark abode, your early rising

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