Some Specifics . . . : A self-portrait full of inaccuracies and omitting mention of any of his literary works, this c.v. was provided by Michaux for inclusion in Robert Bréchon’s 1959 study of his work in Gallimard’s author-profile series, La Bibliothèque idéale.
A Peaceable Man: Originally entitled “Plume’s Philosophy” when first published in the Fall 1930 issue of Commerce along with four other texts announced as belonging to A Certain Plume: “Plume Travels,” “Plume at the Restaurant,” “In the Apartments of the Queen,” and “Plume’s Vision.”
The Night of the Bulgarians: Translated into Spanish in 1931 in the magazine Imán, only one issue of which was published in Paris, edited by the Argentine woman of letters Elvira de Alvear, including contributions by Fargue, Desnos, Giono, Leiris, Bataille, Vitrac, Soupault, Kafka, Asturias, and Dos Passos.
so he wakes up B.: In the 1938 version, “B.” is renamed “Pon.”
Plume’s Vision: When initially published in Commerce, the poem was accompanied by the epigraph: “These apparitions are not angels. It is not God nor, it would appear, are they dreams. Perhaps this is the gestation of essential night, the night that shines both day and night, the night of those to whom days grant nothing.”
Plume’s Finger Was Aching: In the summer of 1929, Michaux complained of suffering atrociously from a case of panaris—a staph infection of his right hand, which made it impossible for him to write.
The Yanking Off of Heads: First published in the NRF in April 1930 under the title “The Night of the Assassins,” as part of a three-part selection entitled “Three Nights,” subtitled “Scenarios of Nightmares,” which also included “The Night of Impediments” and “The Night of Disappearances” (pp. 104–111).
First Death of Plume: In the 1938 edition of Plume, this text was entitled “One Picks a Quarrel with Plume.” The text was subsequently dropped altogether from the 1963 edition of Plume. The 1938 version erases the allusion to World War I in the final paragraph and instead reads: “And he left her with these words of encouragement.”
In Vienna, Second Death of Plume: Dropped from the 1938 edition of Plume. In the fourth paragraph, “Plume” mysteriously turns into “A.”
The spy survived: Perhaps a cryptic allusion to G. K. Chesterton’s dysfunctional spy novel, The Man Who Was Thursday, which Michaux read in 1926.
The Portrait of A.: First published as “Le fils du macrocéphale” (“The son of the macrocephalic”) in the winter 1929 issue of Commerce. In this earlier version, the character here called “A.” is instead named “Eache.” “Eache” (or EH in French) may stand for Henri Eugène, the first and middle names of Michaux. In addition to the English “Each,” the German pronoun “I” (“ich”) is also contained in the name Michaux.
anastomized: From anastomosis, a connection or opening between two things (especially cavities or passages) that are normally diverging or branching, such as between blood vessels, leaf veins, or streams.
Miracles, levitation: The adolescent Michaux was an ardent reader of hagiographies, among them that of Joseph of Cupertino, the levitating saint.
a ball of light: Cf. “A book is a ball of light”—Ezra Pound.
François Coppée: Among the tritest and most mellifluous of late nineteenth-century French poets.
Poor A., what are you doing in America?: The Commerce version reads: “Poor Eache, what are you doing in America? Months pass; suffer, suffer. Poor Eache, what are you doing on board? Months pass, suffer, suffer. Teacher, what are you doing, poor Eache? Journalist, what are you doing, poor Eache? . . .” In 1923, Michaux took on a teaching job at Schadeck-lez-Arlon in Belgium, “a hole in the wall,” he claimed, “with three houses and a population of morons who all speak German.” Later that year, in Paris, he tried his hand at journalism. Previously, during his brief career as a seaman in 1920, Michaux’s boat apparently called at the ports of Savannah, Norfolk, Newport News, Rio de Janeiro, and Buenos Aires.
The Drama of the Constructors: First published in Bifur in April 1930. Later performed at the Théâtre du Trinome in Paris in May 1937, together with playlets by Claudel and Supervielle, and again in 1941 in Marseille. In the 1938 edition of Plume, “The Drama of the Constructors” is preceded by another short play, “Chains,” written in 1937 (not included here because absent from A Certain Plume). Inspired by the madhouse scenes of Poe’s “The System of Dr. Tarr and Professor Fether,” the title may also play on Ibsen’s The Master Builder.
Birth: In the 1938 edition of Plume, “B.” was transformed into the name “Pon.”
Moore’s Dream: In the 1938 edition of Plume, this poem was placed in the “Entre centre et absence” section of Lointain intérieur. Suzanne Malherbe, who went under the pseudonym “Moore,” was a theater designer and lover of Lucy Schwob (the niece of the the fin-de-siècle writer Marcel Schwob), better known under her nom d’artiste as Claude Cahun. Michaux was particularly close to the latter, whose famous “double portrait” photograph of him dates from 1925. Michaux would subsequently spend vacations with Moore and Cahun at their house on the island of Jersey and eventually moved above their apartment at 70 bis rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Ezra Pound’s old Montparnasse address in the early 1920s.
Oorooboo: One of Michaux’s “fantastic animals” (there is a special “Animaux fantastiques” section in the 1938 Lointain intérieur), its name evoking the mythical ouroboros, the serpent or dragon self-reflexively eating its own tail.
The hair introduces himself: Cf. Lautréamont, Les chants de Maldoror, III, 5.
Part Five: In the 1938 edition of Plume, these six free-verse texts that conclude A Certain Plume are redistributed into the “Poems” section of Lointain intérieur.
In the Night: First published in J.-O. Fourcade’s magazine Échanges in March 1930, together with the two following, “At Rest with Misfortune,” and “Blood,” under the title “Poems,” signed Henry Michaux.
On the Path of Death: Inspired by Michaux’s mother’s death in late March 1930. In a letter of the period, Michaux wrote: “Not only has Father died, but my mother is in an extremely serious condition, in a sort of coma, from which she emerges for barely a few minutes a day in order to ask me (very nicely and very innocently) why it is that I am here. There’s no possibility of saving her, but at least she is not suffering greatly.”
Plume in Casablanca: This and the following three poems, together with the “Postface,” were first published as “unpublished chapters” (dated 1936) in the 1938 edition of Plume. In 1933, Michaux had spent what he called “an atrocious month” in Morocco.
The Guest of Honor at the Bren Club: The words “Bren Club” echo “PEN Club”—at whose Fourteenth International Conference in Buenos Aires Michaux spoke in September 1936. Michaux’s address, “The Future of Poetry,” appeared in Spanish in Victoria Ocampo’s magazine Sur that very same month. The French delegation to the PEN Club Congress in Argentina included Jules Romains, Georges Duhamel, Jacques Maritain, and Jules Supervielle; the Italian delegation featured Ungaretti and Marinetti. Michaux attended as a representative of French-speaking Belgium. While in Buenos Aires, Michaux met Borges.
Pascal, Ernest Hello: Crucial authors for the young Michaux in search of saintdom. Ernest Hello was a fin-de-siècle radical Catholic writer, close to Léon Bloy and Barbey d’Aurevilly. Michaux as an adolescent was a fervent reader of Hello’s French adaptations of the medieval mystics John van Ruysbroeck and Angela di Foligno.
the examination of thought falsifies thought: a version of Heisenberg’s 1927 “uncertainty principle”?