︎ English version, available below, please scroll down!
Le Sang !¹ se manifeste à travers sa dimension orale. Il est là pour être lu à voix haute et embrasser toute son étendue performative. Vous le lisez, mais surtout vous l’entendez. Il répond à une volonté non-savante et non-autoritaire de déplacer les marges, une invitation à désapprendre la pensée dominante, à défaire les familles nucléaires. Le Sang ! existe sous forme de flux et de reflux retransmis lors de lectures privées ou face à un public. Le Sang ! circule, Le Sang ! doit circuler.
Le Sang ! est une stratégie reposant sur la déconstruction de la langue comme système établi par ordre d’une grammaire étatique. Le Sang ! devient un nouveau mode de défense. Son vocabulaire commun, voire neutre est celui de l’anglais. Une forme de serveur partagé, à partir duquel tout devient envisageable. Un anglais qui présente l’avantage d’unifier autant que de souligner le champ lexical de l’affect, de l’affectivité, de l’être affecté·e et peut-être même celui de l’utopie des affects.
L’anglais universalise tout en refusant l’universalisme à la française. Il devient par conséquent, le vecteur d’une élocution permanente qui autorise l’existence d’un métalangage initié lors du passage d’une langue à l’autre. De l’arabe (parfois) vers le français (souvent) vers l’anglais (toujours) constamment enrichi par le manque d’ascendance d’une langue sur l’autre et l’absence d’ingérence d’une langue sur les autres. À travers ces allers-retours prononcés par une seule bouche, Le Sang ! a un corps, Le Sang ! a une histoire, Le Sang ! a une famille, celle qu’il est possible d’aimer.
Le Sang ! fédère autour de lui. Ou plutôt, il fédère autour d’elleS, au plus près d’elleS. Le Sang ! ne s’éloigne pas de ses racines et interpelle pour cela les référent·e·s tel·le·s que Jean Genet ou Monique Wittig. Le Sang ! est peut-être finalement une phrase à prononcer ensemble. Le Sang ! évoque aussi le continent américain comme exil. Le Sang ! dit l’essentiel sans jamais essentialiser. Le Sang ! est radical et répète haut et fort sa radicalité. Le Sang ! dit que les Guerrillères² sont toujours là. En vie, en chair, en os. Elles sont tout autour de toi, de moi, de vous. Il dit aussi que ces Guerrillères sont les tiennes, les miennes et surtout les vôtres.
Le Sang ! est présent. Il faut donc le conjuguer au présent. Le Sang ! n’est pas romance, il n’est pas romantique, il ne s’excuse pas, il est sans complexe, jamais. Il s’apparente davantage à une illumination anticipatrice.³ Une île queer dans laquelle l’arme est le mot.
Arlène Berceliot Courtin, Août 2022
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¹ Le sang !/Blood! est le premier recueil de poèmes de Tarek Lakhrissi rassemblant des textes écrits entre 2016 et 2022. « L’ouvrage se présente comme un miroir en deux langues, anglais et français, et nous fait découvrir les thèmes qui structurent l’œuvre de l’artiste comme, entre autres, le combat, le corps, le langage et l’expérience queer minoritaire. Il a été intégralement conçu dans l’atelier d’édition de Lafayette Anticipations. » Texte de présentation, extrait du site internet de Lafayette Anticipations (consulté en août 2022).
² « Elles disent qu’elles ont appris à compter sur leurs propres forces. Elles disent qu’elles savent ce qu’ensemble elles signifient. Elles disent, que celles qui revendiquent un langage nouveau apprennent d’abord la violence. Elles disent, que celles qui veulent transformer le monde s’emparent avant tout des fusils. Elles disent qu’elles partent de zéro. Elles disent que c’est un monde nouveau qui commence. » Monique Wittig, Les Guérillères, Première de couverture, Édition de poche, Minuit, Paris, 1969.
³ « Certaines performances de citoyenneté queer contiennent ce que j’appelle une illumination anticipatrice d’un monde queer, un signe qu’une réalité queer existe bel et bien, un noyau de possibilité politique au milieu d’un présent hétérosexuel sidérant. » Cruiser l’utopie – L’après et ailleurs de l’advenir queer; José Esteban Muñoz, Éditions Brook, Paris, 2021.
︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎︎
Blood!
Blood!¹ manifests itself through its oral dimension. It is an object to be read aloud and to embrace its full performative scope. You read it, but above all, you hear it. It responds to a non-scholarly and non-authoritarian will to displace the margins, an invitation to unlearn the dominant thought, to undo the nuclear families. Blood! exists in the form of an ebb and flow that is passed on during private readings or in front of an audience. Blood! circulates, Blood! must circulate.
Blood! is a strategy based on the deconstruction of language intended as a system established by order of a state grammar. Blood! becomes a new mode of defense. Its common, even neutral vocabulary is that of English. A form of shared server, from which everything becomes possible. English has the advantage of unifying as well as emphasizing the lexical field of affect, of affectivity, and of being affected. Or maybe even the one of the utopia of the affects.
English universalizes while refusing the universalism à la française. Therefore, it becomes the vector of a permanent elocution, which authorizes the existence of a metalanguage originating in the transition from a language to another. From Arabic (sometimes) to French (often) to English (always), it is constantly nurtured by the lack of ascendancy of one language over the other, by the absence of interference of one language over the others. Through these back-and-forths pronounced by a single mouth, Blood! becomes a body, Blood! becomes a story, Blood! becomes a family, the one which is possible to love.
Blood! federates around itself. Or rather, Blood! federates around them, as close as possible to them – like a she, as a plural form. Blood! does not stray from its origins and recalls for this reason sources such as Jean Genet or Monique Wittig. Blood! is eventually perhaps a sentence to be pronounced together. Blood! also evokes the American continent as exile. Blood! says the essential without ever essentializing. Blood! is radical and repeats its radicality, loud and clear. Blood! says that the Guérrilleres² are still there. Alive, in flesh, in bones. They are all around you, around me, around you. It also says that these Guérrilleres are yours, they are mine.
Blood! is present. It must be conjugated in the present tense. Blood! is not a romance, is not romantic, is not apologetic. It is unabashed. It is more like an anticipatory illumination.³ A queer island in which the weapon is the word.
¹ Blood! is the first collection of poems by Tarek Lakhrissi which brings together texts written between 2016 and 2022. The work presents itself as a mirror in two languages, English and French, and makes us discover the themes that structure the work of the artist such as, among others, the fight, the body, the language, and the minority queer experience. It was entirely designed in the publishing workshop of Lafayette Anticipations, text from the Lafayette Anticipations’ website (consulted in August 2022).
² “They say they have learned to rely on their own strengths. They say that they know what they mean together. They say that those who claim a new language, first learn violence. They say that those who want to transform the world first take up guns. They say that they start from zero. They say that it is a new world that is beginning”, Monique Wittig, Les Guérillères, front cover, Pocket edition, Minuit, Paris, 1969. Please note that this extract of the original text has been translated by the author herself as an alternative to several misunderstandings and approximate published translations since the 1970s. It is an interesting challenge to translate the plural form of “She” into English, and “Women” is definitely inappropriate as essentialist and/or exclusive. This complexity expresses the virtuosity of Monique Wittig’s use of the English language from the early 1970s to the chapter ‘Mark of the Gender’ within The Straight Mind, which was originally published in English in 1992. For more information on this topic, please see the current translation by Annabel Kim, Associate professor at the University of Harvard, USA.
³ “Certain performances of queer citizenship contain what I call an anticipatory illumination of a queer world, a sign of an actually existing queer reality, a kernel of political possibility within a stultifying heterosexual present.”, Cruising Utopia, The Then and There of Queer Futurity, José Esteban Muñoz, New York University Press, New York, 2009.
Blood! is a strategy based on the deconstruction of language intended as a system established by order of a state grammar. Blood! becomes a new mode of defense. Its common, even neutral vocabulary is that of English. A form of shared server, from which everything becomes possible. English has the advantage of unifying as well as emphasizing the lexical field of affect, of affectivity, and of being affected. Or maybe even the one of the utopia of the affects.
English universalizes while refusing the universalism à la française. Therefore, it becomes the vector of a permanent elocution, which authorizes the existence of a metalanguage originating in the transition from a language to another. From Arabic (sometimes) to French (often) to English (always), it is constantly nurtured by the lack of ascendancy of one language over the other, by the absence of interference of one language over the others. Through these back-and-forths pronounced by a single mouth, Blood! becomes a body, Blood! becomes a story, Blood! becomes a family, the one which is possible to love.
Blood! federates around itself. Or rather, Blood! federates around them, as close as possible to them – like a she, as a plural form. Blood! does not stray from its origins and recalls for this reason sources such as Jean Genet or Monique Wittig. Blood! is eventually perhaps a sentence to be pronounced together. Blood! also evokes the American continent as exile. Blood! says the essential without ever essentializing. Blood! is radical and repeats its radicality, loud and clear. Blood! says that the Guérrilleres² are still there. Alive, in flesh, in bones. They are all around you, around me, around you. It also says that these Guérrilleres are yours, they are mine.
Blood! is present. It must be conjugated in the present tense. Blood! is not a romance, is not romantic, is not apologetic. It is unabashed. It is more like an anticipatory illumination.³ A queer island in which the weapon is the word.
Arlène Berceliot Courtin, august 2022
_¹ Blood! is the first collection of poems by Tarek Lakhrissi which brings together texts written between 2016 and 2022. The work presents itself as a mirror in two languages, English and French, and makes us discover the themes that structure the work of the artist such as, among others, the fight, the body, the language, and the minority queer experience. It was entirely designed in the publishing workshop of Lafayette Anticipations, text from the Lafayette Anticipations’ website (consulted in August 2022).
² “They say they have learned to rely on their own strengths. They say that they know what they mean together. They say that those who claim a new language, first learn violence. They say that those who want to transform the world first take up guns. They say that they start from zero. They say that it is a new world that is beginning”, Monique Wittig, Les Guérillères, front cover, Pocket edition, Minuit, Paris, 1969. Please note that this extract of the original text has been translated by the author herself as an alternative to several misunderstandings and approximate published translations since the 1970s. It is an interesting challenge to translate the plural form of “She” into English, and “Women” is definitely inappropriate as essentialist and/or exclusive. This complexity expresses the virtuosity of Monique Wittig’s use of the English language from the early 1970s to the chapter ‘Mark of the Gender’ within The Straight Mind, which was originally published in English in 1992. For more information on this topic, please see the current translation by Annabel Kim, Associate professor at the University of Harvard, USA.
³ “Certain performances of queer citizenship contain what I call an anticipatory illumination of a queer world, a sign of an actually existing queer reality, a kernel of political possibility within a stultifying heterosexual present.”, Cruising Utopia, The Then and There of Queer Futurity, José Esteban Muñoz, New York University Press, New York, 2009.