Blog – Page 55 – Nicole Peyrafitte

More about the summer

ready for the reading!

I promise this my last post about the “Voix de la Mediterranée” in Lodève (well maybe, because it bring so much joy to reminisce about it!). During 10 days, about 80 poets and performers, take over the entire town. Poets perform everyday and sometime twice a day. The readings are outdoor, they start at 10 AM and end at about 2 AM every day!
There are readings along the river with the audience on buoys, or with their feet in the water, on a hammocks, or in chaises longues at candle night very late, and sometimes even on a real chairs!
There are action poets, political poets, lyrical poets, great poets, boring poets, storytellers, translators, musicians and a big book fair. Poets & performers come from all around the Mediterranean countries. There were Occitanans, Catalans, Basques, Moroccans, Algerians, Tunisians, Greeks, Italians, Macedonians, Turks, Iranians, Egyptians, Saudi Arabians, Croatians, Israelis, Slovenians, Bosnians Herzegovinians, Syrians and even a bunch of French poets! Unfortunately the Palestinian poets were missing, they were not given visas, it is not clear to me how and why but it is deplorable.

Bon, that is is for now your turn to enjoy!
https://www.nicolepeyrafitte.com/imagesblog/lodeve/LODEVE.html

Back in Brooklyn & processing French voyage

Back in Brooklyn and processing summer material.
I plan to post more videos and pictures from the summer. Today, a clip of the closing performance at the “Voix de la Méditerranée” festival in Lodève. The clip is provided by Pierre Joris who recorded it with his tiny camera from the first row Sunday July 27th, thank you Pierre!
That evening I got to improvise several pieces by other poets and performers with wonderful musicians.
On percussion: Shadi. who is a marvelous Iranian musicians living in Marseilles right now . She plays many traditional instruments, do check out her myspace to find out more about her.

On guitar: Benoist Bouvot. Benoist’s work ranges from free jazz to theater & performance. When we started playing it was like we had always known each other: instant recognition of vocabulary AND his girlfriend turned out to be a close family acquaintance from Luchon (town where I was born and center of the world -if your didn’t know yet-). Click on the link to check out some of Benoist’s work.
The poem we are performing is by NaTYot from her book published by l’Harmattan: Erotik Mental Food. a collection of truly wonderful erotic poems.
Voilà for now and enjoy the clip!

Fire & Hopeless French Poem

In Bourg d’Oueil we cook most our food in the fireplace. Simmering on the left Pierre’s delicious ratatouille.

A poem in French just finished, and started in Lodève and inspired by Dr.Thomas Fogarty’s article “ L’espoir est un leurre

L’Espoir Tue

L’espoir est une maladie incontournable et difficilement curable
L’espoir est un miroir qui offre une réflexion floue et idéalisée de mes désirs
L’espoir -tout comme les Belles de Jour- envahit et appauvrit les ressources essentielles à mon développement durable
L’espoir est une fantaisie toxique du futur
L’espoir remplit les vides nécessaires d’une satisfaction synthétique
L’espoir ne préserve ni de la mort ni du tourment
L’espoir pourrait être
devrait être
sera peut-être
Mais il n’est pas

Et oui l’espoir inspire le calme
il promet l’abondance aux riches et même aux pauvres

Sans l’espoir
l’amour du bonheur se détache
Il fait place à une inévitable et inconfortable réalité

Mais c’est bien là, dépouillé de tout artifice
sans prestige
sans séduction
sans échappatoire
–et avec beaucoup moins de consommation

que commence la quête
et s’ouvre la Vie.

©Nicole Peyrafitte- Summer 2008

Bourg d’Oueil & Show

Time flies in the Pyrenees. I have been here for a week and quite busy getting ready for our Sunday performance (see poster below). Still, I took the time to hike to my favorite spot: my name sake “la peira hitta” or the raised stone and by extension Peyrafitte!

We also had a excellent family lunch. We had great fun “collecting” our food. Pierre and I got up early to be at the market place before the rush. I wanted to make a kind of trout ceviche, from the best trout farm I know of. The farm is owned by long time friends, but the truck wasn’t at the market, so I convinced Pierre that we should take the trip to the fish farm. The shop was closed until later but the dad was there; he calls himself the trout keeper and doesn’t handle any financial matter but that didn’t prevent him to quickly knock out a 2 pound trout and send us home with it. I still haven’t paid my trout! But I will see his son on the market on Saturday. The recipe was simple. I fileted the trout, sliced it really thin, marinated it in lemon, olive oil, salt, piment d’espelette, chives, dill, a little lovage, a few borage flowers and a gorgeous edible iris.

Then we went to get some lamb at the neighbor and grilled it in the fire place. Pierre made a delicious ratatouille. We had some ewe cheese from the Village of Poubeau and a Croustade aux pommes from Luchon. Voilà for now, I must run to rehearsal but I wanted to share the joy! A léu

Viva Lodève!

didier cajella
Didier Calleja place de la Halle Dardé, Lodève

I had hope to post more often but I had NO time. The 10 days at the “Voix de la Mediterranées” in the small town of Lodève were really intense, brilliant and inspirering. I performed everyday and sometimes twice, and the rest of the time I went to see/hear readings and performances from 10 am until 1 am.
Yes! a POETRYLAND it was!
I have uploaded a first batch of pictures that can be viewed at:
https://www.nicolepeyrafitte.com/imagesblog/lodeve/LODEVE.html

More pix and postings from the Pyrenees where we are preparing for our show on Augustus Saint Gaudens August 10th.

Meanwhile ADISHATZ!

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