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Jacques Darras
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Jacques Darras (born 1939 Ponthieu-Marquenterre, France) is a poet, essayist and translator, and taught up until 2004 English and American Literature at the University of Picardie.
His long poem, Tout Reprende à 1914, which fills up an entire book and was published in March, attempts to make the lessons that the outbreak oft he first world war taught us understandable, in order to think Europe anew. In it, he critically confronts the attitudes of poets like Apollinaire, Péguy and Stadler, and their pacifistic convictions. The book is also a journey to Bois de la Gruerie, where Jacques Darras’ grandfather died in the First World War.
The intensive examination of landscapes, in particular that of Northern France, is central for his work. In 1988 Darras began an epic long poem about the banks of the Maye, a river in the French Départment Manche. Since the publication of the first volume La Maye I, seven further volumes have appeared with ‘Le Cri’ and ‘Galimard’ publishing houses. For Darras’ poetic texts, the sound of language, rhythm and melody play a central role.
Additionally, Darras has also distinguished himself with his translations of Whitman, Coleridge, Blake, Lowry, Shakespeare and Pound. Darras has received, among other awards, the ‘Prix Apollinaire’ (2004) and the ‘Grand Prix de Poésie de’l Académie française’ (2006) for his work.
In 1989 he became the first Frenchman to be invited, to hold a ‘Lord Reith Lecture’, on the bicentennial of the French Revolution, which was screened by the BBC.
Publications (Selected)
La Maye I, 1988
Van Eyck et les rivières, dont la Maye, 3 Cailloux 1996
La conjugaison des places amoureuses, Éditions de Corlevour 2010
Je sors enfin du Bois de la Gruerie - Tout reprendre à 1914, Éditions Arfuyen 2014