Astrid Gateau. Le corps epique.

Accad, Evelyne

Paris. L'Harmattan. 2002. 95 pages. 9.50 [euro]. ISBN 2-74753174-0

THESE MORE THAN FIFTY VERSE SELECTIONS by a remarkable woman poet from Lyon, France, are a reflection on "war as a cancer and the struggle to heal as one for peace" (description from the book's cover). She describes her body as becoming a country with uncertain borders, thus the title, Le corps epique (The epic body).

When she came to Lebanon in 2000 to sign her first collection of poems, L'Eleveur de pigeons (The pigeon raiser), she fell in love with that country, which inspired many of the selections found in Le corps epique. The warmth of the people of her country of predilection, the blending of its many cultures, allowed her to deepen her relationship to the universality of writing and better to express "the ordinary as well as the tragic" (cover).

Astrid entered my life on a fall day in Beirut on the occasion of the major bookfair there, where I was presenting my book on cancer and she was presenting her verse collection "The Pigeon Raiser." Someone from my publisher had called to ask if I would be willing to have her give her testimony about cancer during my presentation at the fair. I had agreed, feeling that words from a woman poet would enrich my introduction to the book Voyages en Cancer (2000; Eng. The Wounded Breast, 2001; see WLT 76:2, p. 164). I met Astrid in a cafe on Hamra (red) Street, witness to so many battles and conflicts like most Beirut streets. We recognized each other by the texture of our hair, which chemotherapy gives a wooly, frizzy appearance. We also recognized each other by the intensity of our gaze, the way we capture each moment knowing that each one counts. We talked and talked as if we had known each other for a long time, as if we wanted to unite all the words of the earth to find links between them.

When she presented her poems, the room held its breath, her words brought out the questions and revealed the wounds found in Le corps epique, a collection of poems matured through illness. The discovery of the diseased body matches the discovery of the wounded country--words woven in the pain of a mutilated body, like plants that resist raising their heads in the humus of tears--and of the beauty of a woman expressing her tortured flesh.

 Of course the body is undone

 But there
 Far
 Far away
 In the heart of the envelope itself

 There is still
 The young woman

 Serene and stubborn

 And under the feverish and bald forehead
 The beautiful hair
 Framing and protecting
 From the hazards of time

 And all around the urgent soul
 This persistant halo.

The collection is divided into four parts: "Wandering and the New Country," "Rest and Patience," "Quest for Justice," and "Peace." Gateau's words are filled with passion, revolt, intensity, and impatience at the worlds' conflicts, injustices, pollutions, and with her desire to write in order to regain sanity and beauty. In these days of deep, troubling aggressions and conflicts, we badly need Astrid Gateau's voice filled with hope and a call to carry the torch.

 We shall struggle
 We shall write each morning
 to survive

 The luminous territory
 Of what moves us
 Shall remain

 The only country to be.

Evelyne Accad

University of Illinois