Philippe Beck

Philippe Beck Poems

Philippe Beck Biography

Philippe Beck, born in Strasbourg on April 21, 1963, is a French poet, writer and professor for Philosophy at University of Nantes, in France and European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. Beck was a former student of the ENS de Saint-Cloud, having first attended to study philosophy in 1985. He completed a master in literature and an H. dip in philosophy, and later defended a doctoral thesis in philosophy (Histoire et imagination / History and imagination) under the supervision of Jacques Derrida. He has been a lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Nantes[2] since 1995. His seminars mainly focus on aesthetics. Since 2006 Beck has been a professor of poetry at European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland.[1] In 1990, he was a founding member of Alter, a journal of phenomenology (Ecole Normale Supérieure of Saint-Cloud). He was also the founder and editor in chief of the poetry magazine Quaderno (Ed. MeMo, Nantes, from 1998 to 2000), for which he wrote various articles on poetics and criticism. He is a member of the editorial board of Cités (Cities) and Droits de cités (Laws of Cities) (PUF) and of the journal Agenda de la pensée contemporaine (Calendar of Contemporary Thought) (Flammarion). He was Writer in Residence at Château de Blandy-les-Tours in 2008 at Mission Stendhal Laureate in China in 2009. His poetic works have been featured in various magazines and anthologies. Some of his books and poems have been translated into English, Dutch, Korean and German. Through his poetic work, Philippe Beck has collaborated with contemporary musicians and composers and has on numerous occasions. He is one of the co-writers of Gérard Pesson's opera libretto Pastorale. A number of Beck's works have also been put to music by Pesson: Chants populaires (Popular Songs) for the vocal ensemble Accentus. Beck's Lyre dure was also the basis for Philippe Mion's Oeuvre acousmatique (Acousmatic work), the premiere of which was held in 2009. In March 2013, the Montreal Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Kent Nagano premiered a work by Maxime McKinley, which was based on Beck's book In Nature. Since October 2012 Beck has served as President of the Commission of poetry at the Centre national du livre (National Book Centre) in Paris. An international symposium devoted to his work at the International Cultural Center Cerisy took place in 2013.)

The Best Poem Of Philippe Beck

Moon

In the country of Constant Night
sky is a black sheet
and world a bed.
Or bed is a world.
Black sheet laid over it.
Day slumber
with linen of light.
Moon is far.
Stars are far.
Darkness rhymes with Pastness.
And black dust.
With white ornament.
The pale fire comes from there.
Apprentices change countries.
They go to the country where sun
appears and disappears.
Horizon is the shelf.
Lift brings sun
up to it.
Sun lights up the plateau.
Horizon is a plateau
where volumes go up
of ink especially.
In the land of ancient day,
night hangs from a tree.
The Solid tree.
Oak is source of light
in the dark.
Spring is a sphere in the tree.
It shines like a rounded curve.
Is Moon a silver sun
in the tree World?
It is silver-grey.
Astonishes the ‘prentices.
A white dream.
Fixed to the Oak for three ha'pennies?
Light invented
in a country of night?
There's a full jar of oil
within it?
Round Lamp is bright.
Who is Lamplighter
or Responsible for Light?
An apprentice puts a black sheet
over the moon.
They carry moon off
to the land of official night.
There's an oak-tree in the black country.
Sap is white blood.
New Light gives a new
cheeriness.
It silvers the gloomy countryside.
It bathes the bedrooms.
So there are dances in the clearings.
Moon is filled with its regular oil.
+ a weekly clean-out.
To get a silver fire.
An intense grey fire.
Each apprentice takes to his tomb
a quarter moon.
Sphere's brilliance fades bit by bit.
Ancient black returns.
Use of lanterns, too,
after the shock of night.
Night sheet is the costume of the country.
Moon is underground.
Does it light up a hell?
Cause rejoicing in the land of nothingness?
And hiding for long bodies?
Is there a light under the earth?
No.
A grey starts Intense Melancholy
in the body of oblivion.
Sun is far.
Grey has its feasts of melancholy
whose noise
reaches the sky.
Underground life is of the intense earth.
Jungle where branches cut
exhilarating strips of light.
Grey strips have a coldness
that opens the eyes.
They throw
life over it.
Bodies are upright.
Earth calm sometimes dominant.
Melancholy is extended.
Moon must hold the earth from above.
They attach it to the sky.
It lights the distant water.
Melancholy is preferred up above.
So it comes down.

after ‘The Moon'

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