De rusca e d'ombra (D'écorce et d'ombre) - Guy MATHIEU

De rusca e d'ombra (D'écorce et d'ombre) - Guy MATHIEU

A long poem in Occitan Provençal with a French translation by the author.

The genesis of this poem, which was first written in Occitan, follows a crossroads. Here is what the poet says: "I wrote this long poem when Yugoslavia broke up, but without referring to it; I wrote this text about fratricidal wars (aren't they always?), thinking, among other things, of the massacre of the Vaudois (smoked in a cave near my home), and of the Resistance fighters of all kinds and of all eras. I thus gave a timelessness to this scourge that man discovered when he invented the tool, which was like inventing weapons! It was almost entirely published before the year 2000, in the magazine "Oc", without French translation. On the occasion of our ALEM meetings in Zadar, in 2019, I entrusted the poem to Vanda Miksic who supervised the translation made by her students at the University of Zadar, and the result appeared in Croatian in the magazine Tema, in 2020. And it is only now that those who do not read Croatian discover the whole poem in Occitan or French! I didn't want to write about current events, which journalists do very well, but about human violence, which remains topical. Alas!"

Numbered and signed copies by the author.

Editions L'aucèu libre.

The author:

Guy Mathieu (Gui Matieu) was born on March 4, 1949 in Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, and spent his childhood in Goult in the Luberon.
Ethnolinguist, poet, translator and Occitan writer (Provence), he considers translation as an essential work for an author.

Extract:

Quand se nosian lei dets
dins l’ombra,
a la chut chut
sus d’armas vièlhas
Pas tant escondudas
que lo nom dei sordats

Quand les doigts se nouaient
dans l’ombre
à la dérobée
sur de vieilles armes.