At the moment, a lot of books are coming out dealing with women, but as the great forgotten ones of history, I am thinking in particular of Why History has erased women by Titiou Lecoq, released by L’Observatoire or the book whose I’m going to talk to you, “I will be the fire“of Diglee released by “The city burns” in October. If I speak to you about Rimbaud, Lamartine, Ronsard, Baudelaire, Verlaine, you know that they are famous poets. But if I tell you Rosemonde Gérard, there I am sure that I lost the world. Yet she is the author of the famous lines: ” And like every day I love you more, Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow […]. “
And Diglee, illustrator and author of comics, and above all passionate about poetry, made this observation. We know the poets but do not know the poets well and yet there are some! In “I will be the fire“, she portrays fifty poets, presenting their biographies in a very personal way – speaking a lot of love – and each portrait is beautifully illustrated by Diglee and accompanied by poems by these writers. Emily Dickinson, Joyce Mansour, Anaïs Nin, Patti Smith, Laura Kasischke, Maya Angelou, Andrée Chedid or Sylvia Plath – not to mention the best known.
It’s a very beautiful book, with a canvas cover, gold, a bookmark, very beautiful illustrations as I told you. And that’s also why I wanted to talk to you about it. Christmas is approaching and in my opinion, it’s a great book to slip under the tree.
One last line? From the Austrian Ingeborg Bachmann: “Happiness weaves a silver cord to which I am moored. “
And to stay in the gift ideas and in the poetry – in very free verse this time -, there is the new Iconopop collection of the Iconoclast directed by Cécile Coulon and Alexandre Bord. These are short books with illustrations here too, in small formats and there are notably authors such as Clémentine Beauvais, Baptiste Beaulieu – a superb book by the way, very touching -, as well as singers and composers like Akhenaton (Founder from IAM), Mathias Malzieu (Ex Dyonisos) or Til Lindemann (Rammstein)
And for other reading tips, visit Mademoiselle Maeve’s blog