Jacques Réda, prolific poet and former director of the NRF, has died

The poet Jacques Réda died on September 30, at the age of 95, confirmed to Monde Gallimard editions. One of his last books – written exchanges with Alexandre Prieux – had this remarkably explicit title: Interviews with Monsieur Texte (ed. Fario, 2020). This reference to Mr. Teste, an absolute antihero invented by Paul Valéry, “strange brain where philosophy has little credit, where language is always indicted”is not a simple play on words. With supporting textual slip, it is radiantly relevant. Faithful to this lofty and invisible figure, Jacques Réda, at over 90 years old, speaks, amid learned considerations on prosody, writing and language, of immaturity, of son immaturity which, he says, complicated “the progress of [son] existence ». With reference to Rimbaud, this time, he puts forward the idea that this « chaos » East “perhaps the natural situation of poets”. From the acute awareness of this disorder, at the same time as this struggle to alleviate the chaos, Jacques Réda will, in a diverse and abundant work – more than a hundred titles –, do his good. And that of its readers.

Born on January 24, 1929 in Lunéville, Lorraine, into a family of Piedmontese and Burgundian ancestry, Jacques Réda did part of his classes with the Jesuits. After his military service and the start of law studies, he moved to Paris in 1953 and worked in various professions. His first publications, first in Cahiers du Sud and with small publishers, date from this period, but he will not retain these learning pages in the various reissues of his work.

It was also the time when, after the local or military fanfares, and the plainchant heard in his religious college, he discovered jazz, “the only music made for [son] heart and [ses] nerves »which will have a central importance in his life. From 1963, he became a regular contributor to the monthly Jazz Magazine. At the end of his career in this field, and after several volumes devoted to this music – notably The Improviste. A reading of jazz (Gallimard, 1990 and Folio, expanded edition, 2010) – he published The Song of Possibility. Write jazz (ed. Fario, 2021). It’s difficult not to mention the title of one of the chapters: “A legion of hips”! Throughout her life, Réda will remain faithful to this “pleasure of movement”.

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