In difficult times, it is good to have companions who help us to pass the tests, in the freshness of innocence and reality, on earth and under the sky.
Poems are a resource, they can irrigate life. " In each season, her poem writes the Belgian poet, Colette Nys-Mazure. Today, in this moment of winter, of great cold and snow, are there words that can invigorate us? Yes, without a doubt, Colette Nys-Mazure seems to tell us throughout her literary work with evocative titles. I think of La chair du poème, petite initiation à la vie poétique (2004), La vie poétique, j'y crois (2015), or even this magnificent essay that made the writer known to the general public, Célébration du quotidien (1997) In the poem from threshold to threshold, she lets herself be inspired by winter and inspires for this day.
The harsh wind sweeps the plain
The cold strengthened its claws
In the endless darkness
The snow is watching, its fragile light
The light of the poem given to our memory and to our heart is fragile, when life is harsh, the night long, when the cold encloses. But like Colette Nys Mazure, we can go through life with the words of poets who enchant and help us to exist.
Each year, the Literary Academy of Brittany and Pays de la Loire awards the Yves Cosson poetry prize, as if to whisper in our ears in the winter breeze: "Passing by in a hurry / don't hurry your step / the poet walks by your side / it's your badaud double" (Yves Cosson). The 2021 poetry prize has just been awarded, precisely to Colette Nys-Mazure. Here, we know her well. She has been frequenting Anjou for a long time, likes to let herself be inspired in poetry residencies in Rochefort-sur-Loire, leads " Read, write, count" workshops in Angers, or meets students during seminars or conferences at the Catholic University of the West. The literary jury, in saluting the poetic work of Colette Nys-Mazure, underlines how much the poet enchants the world by inventing images and music that rekindle fires in the night, awakening lively attention to the living. She tells us how much we need poets. Three years ago, she asked me to preface her book Prayers in All Weathers, which she was publishing with Fidelity Editions. I recommend this collection which allows you to face the journey of days less alone and move forward, in prayer:
Help me seize the moment,
To maintain fervor and awakening,
To leap while I remain
Like a child who does not dare to throw himself
In wide open arms.
No responses yet