Valérie Rouzeau


Country: France
Language: French
Year of birth: 1967

When, in 1999, a small book of poems entitled Pas revoir was published, the often hermetic world of French poetry received a jolt. Utterly unacademic, Rouzeau’s poetry draws deep on a tradition of popular poetry in France that includes such major figures as Apollinaire, Queneau, Desnos and Prévert, and which is unafraid to experiment with the pun, the neologism, and even with a kind of child’s babil. This is something Rouzeau has made especially her own, and in her later poetry (especially in the major collections Va où and Quand je me deux) it has become a finely modulated musical resource. She is also one of the finest translators of poetry in English into French today.

Read poems by Valérie Rouzeau on Poetry International Web.

Mon 14 June, 21.30 hrs, small auditorium