La poésie aux âges de la vie

The poetry of Michel Leiris is closely linked to his constant quest for authentic forms of experience and human reality. From surrealism, from which he rapidly turned away, through ethnography and the continuous production of autobiography, the impetus of this side of Leiris' work, which is frequently likened to tauromachy, leads the reader ever further into the most intimate phantasms of poetic creativity. The obsessive fear of the wound bites into man and language alike, sending out as it does so sparks of beauty. The chant of the poem scans to the rhythms of human suffering to rise up finally in its entirety.Lala Marie-Christine. La poésie aux âges de la vie. In: Littérature, n°79, 1990. Michel Leiris. pp. 76-86