Lyrická gesta

With its entry into the world a poem creates the space in which it finds itself. By means of lyrical gestures it poses questions, opens, calls, promises, gives and conserves. In a series of essays Dominique Rabaté shows, using the examples of authors such as Baudelaire, Apollinaire, Frénaud, Bonnefoy and Michaux, the way in which these gestures-movements help overcome the boundaries of speech in the direction of imagery and give back to language its efficacy in the attempt to attain something that is entirely outside of it. By reading a poem we thus share in the adventure that was begun by the author when she beckoned with her hand in a direction towards a horizon about which we have hitherto thought that it is unreachable.