Black Mirror: The Selected Poems of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte [Paperback]

Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1996

poetry, tr David Rattray

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, French (translation)
Original Language: French --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

About the Author

Born in Reims in 1907, Lecomte was the co-founder, with René Daumal and Roger Vailland, of the literary and artistic movement Le Grand Jeu. Three issues of the group s magazine, Le Grand Jeu, appeared between 1928 and 1930. The Surrealists reacted to Le Grand Jeu with hostility. The group fell apart in 1932. Central to Le Grand Jeu was a vision of the unity of everything in the universe that resulted from experiments with carbon tetrachloride performed by Lecomte with his friend René Daumal when they were teenagers. Daumal later wrote about the experience in his essay, "A Fundamental Experiment". Lecomte defined its essence as "the impersonal instant of eternity in emptiness". This glimpse of eternity in the void was to send Daumal to Hinduism, the study of Yoga philosophy, and Sanskrit. It sent Lecomte on an exploration of what he called a "metaphysics of absence". In imagination he returned to a pre-natal state, a "wondrous prior existence". In 1933 Lecomte published a volume titled La Vie l Amour la Mort le Vide et le Vent (Life Love Death Void and Wind), which went unnoticed by the press, save for a rave review by Antonin Artaud in the Nouvelle Revue Française, which is reprinted as a forward in our published work of Lecomte s Le Miroir Noir which was originally privately printed in a limited edition in 1938. Lecomte never left Paris after the early 1930's. His life was a succession of jail and hospital confinements. Very few old friends would have anything to do with him during the last years. Over the generation following his death, Lecomte's oeuvre acquired the status of an underground classic. His friend Adamov published a selection of his poetry, and leading French literary magazines devoted space to him. The complete works were issued in three volumes during the 1970's by Gallimard. They consist of approximately 100 poems, a booklength collection of prose texts, including essays setting forth the principles of the Grand Jeu movement and various pieces of literary criticism, and, finally, a volume of letters. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 111 pages
• Publisher: Barrytown Limited (May 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 188644918X
• ISBN-13: 978-1886449183
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,108,784 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Major, Majorly Overlooked Poetic Talent, August 16, 2004

By 

J from NY (New York) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Black Mirror: The Selected Poems of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (Paperback)

Lecomte's poetry is primal and esoteric, mercilessly pulling the teeth of an unreal world. His 'metaphysics of absence' is not as important as the dark, incandescent images he creates while employing it. (Just a few pages and one knows he spent too much time around Daumal.) Despite his constant references to 'eternity' and that sort of thing, he is unsanctimonious and irreverent in his approach. "What a Howling Shame" paints the poet as both friend and enemy of technology and the modern world: "From the phantom of spunk/the spirit of flint/ and the spectre of steel/a magic instrument/ of incalculable shamanic and poetic value." Lecomte's world is like a shadowy funhouse mirror. The poet's exhilarating self reflection in "I'm Not Scared of Wind" is reminiscent of Rimbaud: "You bring things that would be doomed the most flat footed inertia madly alive/ You engender major phantoms and fits of the willies/You dervish clown/You kind of change/You rascal/You excessive cherub." It's surprising that Lecomte's poetry isn't better known. As Artaud writes in his introduction, Lecomte shuns 'personal' poetry and bathes in the chaotic and the visionary. Yummy stuff.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Poet, Good Translation, October 5, 2000

By 

Nicklaus Scott Deyring (Sunnyvale, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Mirror: The Selected Poems of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (Paperback)

Dark surreal poetry from a poet that died in 1947, unknown.

Very visual, I highly recommend.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars cornerstone of literature, October 14, 2001

By 

Raymond (Los Angeles, Ca.) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Black Mirror: The Selected Poems of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (Paperback)

This is one of the top two must have poetry books of all time hands down. It rests right beside The flowers of evil.