« And now let’s welcome the New Year,
Full of things that never have been »
— As I paint the night with my screams
Fireworks join me in this peticular choir,
Red flashes illuminating my face —
They’re highlighting the pain
That comes when things end.
La nuit des terrasses et Caverne suivi de Cadavres est un recueil de poésie contemporaine regroupant trois oeuvres du poète haitien Makenzy Orcel, que je découvre à l’occasion de cette réédition des éditions la Contre allée pour la collection la Sentinelle. J’ai tout de suite plongée dans cette oeuvre crue, où la nuit est le théâtre de décès et d’amours qui voient le vin se mélanger au sang, instant éphémère où les passions d’un temps se jouent de manière intense, la mort toujours au tournant. Le feu des rituels dionysiaques se mêlent dans Cadavres à la froideur de l’eau et de la mort, représentant la nature multiples des soirées passées par le(s) narrateurs, à la fois fête, requiem et champ de bataille non sans dans Terrasses rappeler au lecteur la terrible soirée des attentats du Bataclan. Quant à la Caverne suivie d’une méditation sur la mort, j’hésiterai presque à évoquer la référence à l’allégorie de la caverne de Platon sur notre compréhension toujours incomplète de la vie, tant elle semble évidente.
Je ne sais que retenir de ce recueil car j’ai envie d’en retenir chaque phrase, chaque mot, sans pour autant avoir l’impression de lui faire honneur par la présente critique. Il s’en est que je suis infiniment reconnaissante envers la Contre Allée d’avoir réédité ces textes essentiels, qui ont toute la force du classique en devenir. Je pensais l’avoir choisi par hasard; mais je pense que c’est la force de ce texte unique qui s’est imposée sur mon chemin. Si vous hésitez encore, je ne peux que vous en recommander vivement la lecture; s’étendre sur une analyse aussi superficielle ne risquerait qu’au contraire de vous détourner de cet ouvrage fort, dont chaque lettre mérite d’être analysée sous toutes ses coutures.
Préface de Gisèle Sapiro, sociologie de la littérature directrice de recherche au CNRS et directrice d’études à l’EHESS.
Éditions La Contre-Allée pour la présente édition, collection La Sente (2023), édition anniversaire pour les 15 ans de la maison d’édition, format poche. Regroupe La nuit des terrasses, collection La Sentinelle (2015) et Caverne suivi de Cadavres, collection la Sentinelle (2017), lauréat du prix littéraire des lycéens et apprentis d’Île de France en 2018.
ISBN 978-2-376650-90-4
Goodreads – Babelio – Gleeph
What is your career plan?
If there’s one thing that you can’t really speak about when you’re just becoming disabled, and especially with people who are not disabled themselves, it is the fact that you are most likely grieving ever – or at least, for longer than they think – having a career. Whoever’s asking me what is my career plan right now, the answer is most likely to be that I do not have a career plan right now, at least not in the traditional sense of the term. I have projects I am working on and goals I am hoping to achieve, but it’s most likely that listing them (even if they imply taxable activities) will make people uncomfortable and ask what I’m going for long term. This coming at a time when I am recovered enough to be able to at least list activities that won’t lead to an awkward silence.
If there is a thing I learnt the hard way becoming disabled, is that we live in a society where your value is defined not only on the kind of career you are actively chasing (on top of the job you already have), but also on your ability to do so. Anything else is met with an awkward silence, at best because the other person didn’t consider that you weren’t for an answer, at worst because they are putting you in the reject kind of their brain – and really, we can’t blame the first category. Everything in our everyday lives revolves around you being an active and working member of society, the two being most of the time at best unconsciously linked.
One of the eye-opening discussion I had on the subject was during my stay at the outpatient ward, where I met other people that were grieving the fact they wouldn’t be working ever again. For most of them this realisation was difficult, as most people without disabilities don’t understand why you don’t at least try, because the worst that can happen is you ending your contract. No. The worst that can happen is the psychward. Resetting the timing of your recovery. The narrative mainstream media is so cluttered with so called ‘’success stories’’ from disabled people outdoing their sickness and even crossing the boundaries of what is possible for a led people that they tend to forget that this isn’t a fight or a try to outdo everyone, but a process of learning to live with yourself.
In fact, I would say a win is finding your value outside of usual expectations and people that support you in your journey in this world were nothing is made to accommodate people with different realities, nor considerate them in any other way than a problem to fix. Sometimes, it is better healthwise to think outside of a career or as a non-working person, as not doing so destroyed my self-esteem. There is value in other things, too.
Barbara Ferreres
Tapes, from the « Souvenirs » painting series, by Okaasan/Nathalie Ferreres, mixed media on canvas, all rights reserved 2023-2024
She noticed the graphite scratching,
The ink flowing ;
Second scretched,
As she lurked
It’s too much sound
Should I make it round
To the telegrapher
Or doesn’t it matter
(suite…)
