A Diary, Some Poems (French irregular plural)

On the first of April 1992, Jacques Jouet, having invented the form known as the “daily poem,” inaugurates a diary of poems, meant to last as long as an ordinary diary, which is to say, ideally, an entire lifetime. In preparation for this long journey, he arms himself with a strange sort of compass, composed of the assemblage of a turnip, a cloth, and an oeil-de-vieux ¹ (a tool painters use), all perfectly heterogeneous, which he defines, toward the beginning of his undertaking, with this three-line poem: “It’s the composition of the world, / the part / for the whole of what’s to come.” The result is a series of poems entitled Navet, linge, oeil-de-vieux. Published in December 1998 by P.O.L., in three volumes.