Youth in Poitiers

Orphan from a working class family, he must satisfy short surveys and earn a living at the age of 15 years. His stepfather made ​​him interrupt his studies. Jean Rousselot between as an auxiliary to the Prefecture of Vienna. Rousselot also meet the poet Louis Parrot, then Shopping in Poitiers, seven years his senior and who becomes his friend and mentor.

In 1931, Rousselot studied law and Latin. He became the editor mayor of Poitiers, then, after a contest and passed, Secretary of the Police Commissioner. The experience he has of life of the working and peasant condition, such as poverty and injustice, have largely contributed to its political and social education and to forge his socialist and humanist commitment, as written by Christophe Dauphin (in Jean Rousselot, carrying fire , magazine without shoulders Men # 16, 2004).

Rousselot participates in the journal Youth , founded in Bordeaux in 1932 by Jean Germain and Pierre Malacamp . With Marc Fernand , he founded the magazine The Last Square , which will accommodate Joe Bousquet , who became a friend, and also Michel Manoll , by whom he will contact later with Jean Bouhier , René Guy Cadou or Lucien Becker . A new test shoots to twenty years, with the disappearance of his grandparents Audin. The same year, the poet is hospitalized in a sanatorium of Saint-Hilaire, following repeated spitting blood. A year later, life takes over: he married Yvonne Bafoux in August 1934 The couple had two daughters. Claude and Anne-Marie. Rousselot published his first two collections of poems: Poems (Collection of Youth) and to not die (The Slips Wisdom). Source: André Marissel , Jean Rousselot , Seghers, 1960).

The poet and war

Jean Rousselot successfully passed in 1936, a contest to be Police Commissioner. He was appointed to Rosendaël near Dunkirk , and then transferred to Vendome in 1938. poet comes into contact with the Resistance and uses his position to hide escaped prisoners, while preserving its best Jews. (Source: André Marissel , Jean Rousselot , Seghers, 1960).

In 1942, Jean Rousselot appointed to Orleans . He continued his work as a poet-resistant: poems, pamphlets, false papers ... He saves his brother, and then, in 1943, the poet of Monny Boully and his wife Paulette (mother of Claude Lanzmann ), arrested by the Gestapo . In February 1943, Jean Rousselot engages in the ranks of Free France and becomes Captain John in the network Cohors-Asturias . Meanwhile, the poet had befriended Paul Eluard and met Max Jacob in 1942 in Saint-Benoît-sur-Loire . Rousselot corresponded with the poet of the Central Laboratory for a year. A strong friendship instituted immediately. On 24 February 1944, Max Jacob was arrested by the Gestapo and died March 5, 1944 at Drancy . Max Jacob is one of the two great poets, who strongly marked and influenced and friends of the School of Rochefort . There is therefore Max Jacob and Pierre Reverdy .

Jean Rousselot joined Rochefort-sur-Loire , in June 1940, where the "truant" as nicknamed René Guy Cadou, which is founded in 1941, contributing among other journals or groups, survival of poetry free and without indulgence Vichy and occupied. Rousselot is the group from the beginning, along with René Guy Cadou and Jean Bouhier , which will join Michel Manoll , Marcel Béalu , Luc Bérimont , Roger Toulouse and many others. Providing a platform for flight poets and poetry, Rochefort has no doctrine. Diversity of its members is its richness. All have in common the horror of the ivory tower, contempt of Parisianism, brotherhood with the elements and, of course, the rejection of fascism. Cadou, died of cancer at thirty-one years in 1951, was itself the soul of the group, with its simple lyricism and marveled that lonely and tormented. Rousselot never make every effort to access the work of Cadou recognition. During this period, the poet published: Man is in the middle of the world (Fontaine, 1940), Proceedings (Booklet School Rochefort 1941), The Poet returned (Bread White, 1941) Repeat the night ( Les Cahiers de l'École de Rochefort, 1943) Arguments (Laffont, 1944), Blood of Heaven (Seghers, 1944). (Source: Christophe Dauphin , Jean Rousselot, the poet who has not forgotten to be the book Centennial Editions Rafael Surtis, 2013).

In August 1944, Rousselot participated in the battles for the liberation of Orleans and was appointed Commissioner by the central Resistance, is the responsibility of five departments in the region. After the Liberation, he was appointed to Paris as Chief of Staff Deputy Director of National Security. He joined the National Committee writers.

The poet at breast height

In 1946, the poet makes an important decision. All crowned by its action as a poet and resistant (he was awarded the medal of the Free French Forces, the title of Chevalier of the Legion of Honour and the Officer of the National Order of Merit and will be later appointed Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters), he resigned from the National Security and decides to live by his pen. Jean Rousselot is a tireless advocate for poetry, poets, freedom, and one of the biggest critics of his generation. From 1946 to 1973, Jean Rousselot publishes thirty plates or volumes of poems, The Attic (Jeanne Saintier, 1946), at the same the same (Rougerie, 1973), passing by, There is no exile ( Seghers, 1954) Aggregation time (Seghers, 1957), from Maille (Seghers, 1961) or Out of Water (Chambelland, 1968), while in 1974 seems The Livelihoods , poetic Work 1934 - 1974 (Seghers). On the back cover, Georges Mounin wrote: "This man never asleep on the pillow literature. More success is confirmed, more anxiety grew. It was a true concern, with absolutely nothing pathological. "(Source: Christophe Dauphin , Jean Rousselot, the disappearance of a man to be , reviewed here there è 2, 2005).

Rousselot also gives twenty pieces for radio, as it translates or adapts many poets, Hungarian to French ( Gyula Illyés Ferenc Szenta, Attila Jozsef , Madach Imre , Sándor Petőfi ); English to French (Shakespeare, Blake, Poe ...), for the purposes of a book or anthology, whose anthology of Hungarian poetry of the twelfth century to the present day (Le Seuil, 1962 ), directed by his friend Ladislas Gara.

Twenty trials of high-vaulting on: Max Jacob , Oscar de Lubicz Milosz Vladislas , Paul Verlaine , Tristan Corbiere , Pierre Reverdy , Edgar Allan Poe , Blaise Cendrars , Maurice Fombeure , Attila Jozsef , Orlando Pelayo , William Blake , Jean Cassou , Agrippa d'Aubigné , Victor Hugo , Albert Ayguesparse ...

Six collections of stories and news, Balloons (Sheets Ilot, 1938) to desperate Hesperides (Amiot-Lenganey, 1993); eight books of history or fictionalized lives on Diane de Poitiers, Chopin, La Fayette, Liszt, Genghis Khan, Wagner, Berlioz and Hugo.

Eleven novels, Prey and shadow (Laffont, 1945), at Guesthouse (Belfond, 1983), through If you want to see the stars (Julliard, 1948), A flower of blood (Albin Michel, 1955 ) or a train hides another (Albin Michel, 1964).

Citizen of the world, faithful to its commitments and its origins, Rousselot quarrel in 1956 with Louis Aragon and the National Committee writers: he denounced the imposture, Stalinist crimes and publicly expresses its solidarity with the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. he was staying in Budapest, with Tristan Tzara and his friend the great Hungarian poet Gyula Illyés few days before the outbreak of the insurrection, 23 October 1956. (Source: Jean-Louis Depierris , Tradition and insubordination in French poetry , Nancy University Press, 1992).

Meanwhile, he continues to juggle his work as a poet, writer, critic. He became President of the Society of Men of Letters in 1971. Creating a social security scheme for authors owes him much.

In 1975, Jean Rousselot involved in the rebuilding of the Mallarmé Academy (dormant since 1951), with Paul Denys Bouloc , Michel Manoll , Marcel Béalu , Edmond Humeau and Guillevic Eugene , who became the first president. The Académie Mallarmé in his eyes, a defense and illustration of poetry.

Fourteen collections will come as a result of the anthology of poems, The Livelihoods (pivotal work), including, The Mysteries of Eleusis (Belfond, 1979), Where the rain may still fall (Belfond, 1982), To do not forget to be (Belfond, 1990) Hookups conspiracies (South Poetry, 1990) The continuous Spectacle (La Bartavelle, 1992) A Swash Solfatara (Rougerie, 1994) or Word On (The Bartavelle, 1995) . A large selection of poems by Jean Rousselot, appears in Rougerie in 1997 under the title, Selected Poems 1975-1996 , giving a representative selection of his poetry. (Source: Christophe Dauphin , Jean Rousselot, life as a scream ripped into nothingness , magazine Le Cri bone No. 33/34, 2001

Thus, the first side of the work "marked" by the anthology The Livelihoods sings man in its naked truth and honest that is, his hope, his confusion. The second side symbolized Selected Poems , without sacrificing the core values ​​and lyrical poet, is moving further towards a perpetual and constant research on language, the metaphorical nature of the operation, which is the basis of all writing . (Source: Christophe Dauphin , Jean Rousselot, carrying fire , magazine without shoulders Men # 16, 2004).

Defining his poetic art, Rousselot wrote: "The poem is an awareness of the powers of the poet on the time it stopped, the feelings it makes their sublime nature, on the real, it pierces, transmutes moves, to show the essence and sustainability. "Man, like the poet, is made ​​of words, movements and commitments in his time, but with requirement:" Me seems good (poetry) which brings me a new vision of the world, " force "mine or help me to clarify. Yet should there be safety, beauty, novelty if expression. All that is "manufactured" ruffles me, even if it is pretty. No trinkets at home. "(Source: Christophe Dauphin , Jean Rousselot, the poet who has not forgotten to be the book Centennial Editions Rafael Surtis, 2013).

Jean Rousselot dies in its Ninety-first year, Sunday, May 23, 2004. He was buried Friday, May 28, in the cemetery of Pecq.Yvelines adoption, the Poitevin Jean Rousselot lived since 1955 in L'Etang-la-Ville . It was inaugurated on 14 February 2002, at Guyancourt , the House of Poetry Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and located right next to the library that bears his name. A street of Poitiers also bears his name.