Benoît Gréan

Benoît Gréan is a French poet. Born in Strasbourg, and a slow traveller, he moved first to New York City, in the late 1980s, then settled in Rome.[1]

Benoît Gréan
Poet on the beach © Wendy Artin, 2020

Gréan has published twelve volumes of poetry in French. Several of his works have been translated and published into German, Greek, Italian and English. In Germany, Hochroth[2] has published him bilingually[3] and he was a contributor to several issues of the German painter Markus Lüpertz's Frau und Hund. His volume Monstres tièdes has been translated by Massimo Sannelli and published in a bilingual Italian edition as Mostri tiepidi with a preface by Valerio Magrelli,[4] and the Greek translation Chliara terata by Efi Hatziforou is bilingually published too.

Fascinated by lapidary or fragmentary form, from Martial to Sappho, he is equally intrigued by the explorations of contemporary music.

Mai and Monstres tièdes are generally linked to Mediterranean life, whereas PSB 24 (Petite suite blieuxoise en 24 heures) and PSA 14 (Petite suite attique en 14 pauses) are anchored in specific sites, respectively, of Haute-Provence, France, and ancient and modern Greece. corps et riens, Extinctions and Successions should be read as a trilogy (the second title refers to Thomas Bernhard).

Gréan has also enjoyed collaborating with artists. 80 [5] is an artist's book with a lithograph by Luisa Gardini,[6] an Italian artist who also contributed to Mai, Monstres tièdes, corps et riens,[7] Successions, à, Rideau and Sonnets des satiétés; Gardini also turned Monstres tièdes into a book of her own, WPMT15, published by cythère critique in 2005 (ISBN 978-88-901696-2-5), as well as a series of bookmarks published by Ecbolade in 2004, and a poster stamped by atelier de l'agneau in 2003. Works by the French painter Caroline Coppey [8] appear in PSA 14 and Extinctions, and Bleu jour is based on the work of the same artist. The poems Gréan has addressed to the general work of Luisa Gardini, Caroline Coppey and Giorgio Bevignani[9][10][11] and in à.[12]

The composer Valerio Sannicandro[13] based his Corps/Riens on corps et riens, which was first performed in Kyoto on November 13, 2015.[14]

Some poems have been published in various magazines as PO&SIE,[15] Poésie 2000, Le Mâche-Laurier, Noniouze, Décharge, Marge 707, Moriturus, Le frisson esthétique, Hapax, l'intranquille and larevue* in France, Calendrier de la poésie francophone and MIDI in Belgium, RBL (Revue de Belles-Lettres) in Switzerland, Exit in Canada, Pagine, Offerta Speciale, BINA and SUD in Italy, Nea Hestia in Greece, Artic, Frau und Hund and hochroth in Germany, Wespennest in Austria, Sentinel Literary Quarterly in Great Britain, The Brooklyn Rail[16] in the USA.

As a translator, he helps to broaden familiarity in French among French speakers with Italian poets such as Guido Mazzoni,[17] Mariangela Guatteri, and others.