Poèmas - Poèmes - 1943-1984 - Robert LAFONT

Poèmas, Poèmes, 1943 - 1984 - Robert LAFONT

Collected poems: Paraulas au vièlh silenci (1946), Dire (1957), Pausa cerdana (1962), L'Ora (1963), Aire liure (1974), Lausa per un solèu mòrt e reviudat (1984), Poèmas esparpalhats (1946-1981).

Robert Lafont is first and foremost a linguist, historian of Oc literature, medievalist, sociologist and political theorist of contemporary Occitanism.
We're also well aware of the breadth of his novels in Occitan, making him arguably the most diverse and productive prose writer in 20th-century Occitan.
The poet is less well known, yet "Robert Lafont is first and foremost a poet, and it is through poetry that he enters the world of writing. [...] Poetry for him [...] is the obscure, throbbing heart, 'the most central center' of a quest that merges with his life and that we can define as a search for the word. A personal word that goes back to the paradise of childhood, inherited from a tutelary grandfather whose stature dominates his entire life and work. A collective word that must be given back to a defeated people who have missed out on their destiny, so that they can emerge from their "old silence" and once again become the subject of history. To speak and make others speak. The personal word joins the collective word. [...] Sensitive and cerebral, free or subject to the measure of verse, Robert Lafont's poetry is an attempt to grasp the world through the heart and the intellect" (Jean-Claude Forêt).

Bilingual book: poems in Provençal Occitan, with French translations.
At the end of the book, notes on publishing principles, spelling and textual variants.

Editions Jorn.

Publisher's presentation:

Comprendre et cœurprendre le monde...

The first book of Robert Lafont is a collection of poems: Lyrics to the old silence. We are in 1946, he was 23 years old. It is through poetry that inaugurated a literary, scientific and political will have more than 110 pounds.
Robert Lafont is primarily a poet and poetry is that between writing. The momentum is taken. Throughout his life, he will publish poems in journals or anthologies, nine books with all of unequal length, since these words in silence until the old Great Journey of Odysseus of Ithaca, translation of the Odyssey, he published in 2004 and is a work of art in itself. Sixty years of poetry.
Poetry for him is not a hobby teaching scholar. This is the heart darkness and flying, "the center more central" research that merges with his life and that we can define as a search word. Personal word that dates back to the paradise of childhood, inherited from a grandfather guardian whose stature dominates all life and all the work. Collective voice in giving back to a defeated people missed his destiny, so that its "old silence" and again become a subject of history. Speak and to talk. Speech Personal joined the collective voice. The poet joined the teacher, activist and scholar linguist. The fate of the writer is confused with that of his people. An often quoted to the second collection (1957), entitled precisely say, summarizes the life and work: "The only power he said. '
"The only power he said. "The language is peculiar to man and it circulates like blood in his veins and vessels. The man is a speech, a linguistic creature hole porosity. He rebuilt in the microcosm of his mouth talking the entire universe, anamorphosis, that is to say by analogy and model. The linguist invented a theory to demonstrate that any speech act is an action on the world e his power over the world he has to speak. This is the word which can move mountains.
After the first book written at the end of the war, 11 elegiac poems, filled with nostalgia and glare to the landscape, this poetry is both meditation and action. She talks about the beauty of the world and human misery. Beauty and misery in the large collection say, the first part is entitled "Saying things love" and the second "Telling the century man."
She also tries to reconcile the angel and the beast coexist in us, the heart and the reason, sensuality and intelligence. A poem in the collection free Air (1974) invites us to "cœurprendre" and "understand" the world, consumed by the senses and the mind. The garden, which celebrates Written for a sun died and rose (1984), is a figure of the poem: a place where blind join the gushing of life and a desire for order, the project of a thought.
RL has always had a taste for form, speech measured by rhyme and meter. Written for a sun died and rose proposes a reflection on the relationship between the poem and the monument, poet and architect. Carved stone and poetic word illuminate each other: their common point is the shape imposed by the intelligence volatile substance, evanescent, abstract speech and density heavy, brutal crushing and stone . Form makes the light stone and dense speech, she drags both. The poem in its frozen form is the breath of life in declamation, in that the linguist Lafont called the operational time of the sentence, as the monument comes alive in the proportion of ever-changing light and shade distributed the course of the sun.
Large collections, and Dire Air Free, question and celebrate the histoie "two sizes of man sex and reason." Sensitive and brain, free or subject to the measure of the verse, the poetry of Robert Lafont is an attempt to understand the world through the heart and mind.

Extract :
"Lo sol poder es que de dire.
"Dire doç : una aranha
penchena lo solèu
sus lo pònt de l'aubeta.
"Dire fèr : la montanha
es una frucha amara
qu'enteriga lei sòrgas.
"Dire larg : la marina
a pausat sei doas mans
sus l'esquinau dau mond.
"Dire amic : l'amarina.

"La lenga es davant ieu
nusa coma una dròlla." (p. 117, Dire, La Lenga d'òc) 


"Le seul pouvoir est celui de dire.
"Dire doux : l’araignée
peigne le soleil
sur le pont de l'aurore.  
"Dire dur : la montagne
est comme un fruit amer
qui agace les sources.  
"Dire vaste : la mer  
a posé ses deux mains
sur l'échine du monde.
"Dire ami : l'amarine.

"Ma langue est devant moi  
aussi nue qu’une fille." (p. 116, Dire, La Langue d'oc).