Jean-Pierre Duprey (1 January 1930, in Rouen – 2 October 1959, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

) was a French

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator ( thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems ( oral or wri ...

and

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

, one of the modern examples of a

poète maudit A ''poète maudit'' (, "accursed poet") is a poet living a life outside or against society. Abuse of drugs and alcohol, insanity, crime, violence, and in general any societal sin, often resulting in an early death, are typical elements of the bio ...

(accursed poet). Duprey said "I, I shouldn't have got stuck in this galaxy!" André Breton, fascinated by the darkness and imagery in Duprey's poetry, invited the author to Paris in 1948. Duprey's books are not a celebration of death, neither do they find comfort in thinking about it. All questions asked in the poems of his last book ''The End and the Means'' (1970) are left unanswered, but their author found a way somewhere "beyond" (Jouffroy, 1970, quoted in ). He had a sense for scandals, too. One day he went to the grave of the Unknown Soldier by the Arc de Triomphe and urinated on the eternal flame Duprey jailed
for which he was arrested and beaten in the jail; later also taken to a mental hospital. Between 1951 and 1958 he did not write and concentrated on working on sculptures. He wrote his final book in 1959 and upon completion, he asked his wife to send the manuscript to Breton. When she returned from the post office, she found him dead; he had hanged himself in his studio. Three days before his death, he said calmly to a friend: "I am allergic to this planet".

Bibliography

* ''Derrière son double'', Le Soleil Noir, 1950 * ''La Forêt sacrilège'', Le Soleil Noir, 1964 * ''La Fin et la manière'', Le Soleil Noir, 1970 * ''Œuvres complètes, annotée par François Di Dio'', Christian Bourgois, 1990; again Poésie/ Gallimard, 1999 * ''Un bruit de baiser ferme le monde'', Unedited poems; Le Cherche-Midi, 2001

References

External links

Short info

Poètes maudits 1930 births 1959 suicides 1959 deaths Artists from Rouen Suicides by hanging in France 20th-century French poets French male poets 20th-century French male writers Writers from Rouen {{France-poet-stub