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Michel Deguy France    PWF 2011

The resplendent genie of French poetry—Michel Deguy was born in 1930 in Paris. As a "writer of poems", he has forged an emergency exit—"at the edge of the world."

"But what an effort, what a secret, what hands in a flash among shadows and the close darkness of legs, what betrayals, what trust in the goodness of forbiddance."

Deguy is always asking himself one question in his poetry: what is "that strange contradictory object, constituted in language yet separate from linguistic assemblies, enunciation, discursiveness, diction, inscription—?"

The founder and editor-in-chief of Po&sie, Michel Deguy has received numerous awards, such as the Grand Prix de poésie de l'Académie Française. He has published over thrity collections of poetry, which include Fragments of the Cadastre, By Ear, Acts, Figurations, Given Giving, and Recumbents.

"Poetry like love risks everything on signs."

Michel Deguy lives in Paris.