In addition to the pervasive mythic themes, your poetry also seems to be about the familiar, about contemporary quotidian life.

Of course, but as I was telling you: the myths in all their concrete parts. For example, Ulysses, or else Jesus the carpenter, or else Oedipus with the swollen feet. That brings me close to mythology because I am very attached to concrete things. I think that poetry, that is, my poetry — I won’t speak for the poetry of others — always speaks of or includes concrete shapes. When eventually arriving at a meditation on death in my last collection, Avec la mort, quartier d’orange entre les dents (With Death, an Orange Slice Between the Teeth), it shows the reunion between the concrete and the abstract: it is death, but with an orange slice between the teeth. An orange slice is something very agreeable to think about. The mouth is full and the question is: is it death who has the orange slice between its teeth, or is it I who have the orange slice between my teeth? I am content to relegate myself to death, forgetting that it’s also the reader who will find this orange slice in his mouth. Will the reader also find that death, in the end, is not just a negative thing? Often, even the titles of my poems contain concrete things. Concreteness is fundamental to my poetry.

I think my poetry, and the poetry of many others, comes out of our hearts, the sounds we make, the physical movements of our writing. I am very attached to the idea that in our hearts we have things that are exposed, naked things that we cannot see. We cannot predict which of these things will happen. Perhaps death will come to my heart, perhaps a bacteria in my heart, I don’t know. Perhaps my heart is getting ready to beat no more, I don’t know. There is an enigma in the interior of my heart, and this brings me closer to the world: the interior of my heart is entirely the same matter as the leaves in trees or the cat — we have the same DNA, it is thus a communion with the world that takes place in the heart.

This reminds me of one of my favorite lines in your poetry, “The wounded earth / sleeps in my body.”

Yes. Deep down, I find an enigma, a communion with the concrete things in the interior of my heart which may cause my death. And I am not afraid of death, insofar as I think I will rejoice in these concrete things. Of course, not more than other courageous people who rejoice in the passage and think death to be something different than I do, but death is still the entry into the shared system.

Do you think that a person afraid of death lives differently than one who is not afraid of death?

Yes, I think that someone who is afraid of death doesn’t think well of old age first of all because old age is close to death. For me, on the contrary, old age is an age to celebrate. There is a whole section at the end of Rituel d’emportement (Ritual of Anger) which was previously unpublished, “Who Travels at Night,” that is a mélange about old age. I think it is an extraordinary period of life because when you reach it, you’ve had a lot of experience and therefore have arrived at a greater serenity. When you are old you see that you’re only a small concrete thing, perfect for clinging to the earth. I think the young are afraid of death. They don’t like the idea of becoming old, and believing in God, God’s promise of another life, assuages their fear of death. But believers can also be afraid that they will be punished after death, thus have a fear of hell. I think fear of death is pervasive and is not conducive to living the way you want to live.