May I ask you to talk about another poem, “Mosaic”?

It’s about a new mosaic, I think it’s an Italian mosaic. This mosaic shows the beginning of the world and then the redemption, according to the Catholic belief. It shows a crossing of the rivers, you know, the rivers in Paradise, which signifies the beginning of time in Paradise. It also depicts Christ crucified on Golgotha. Very often in French art you see the cross planted in the ground, naturally, and also the cave underground. It signifies the redemption of original sin, and this is what is depicted in the mosaic, through the artist’s imagination. So visitors see this mosaic and think about what it means, and, for me, this reflection includes the examination of religious belief, as I am obviously not a believer in God. For me, beliefs are things that have been brought to conclusion, things that no longer exist. Children become familiar with Catholic beliefs in school, though, as did I when I was young. Sometimes I think about what it would be like if I did believe in God. It would be nice to believe in a world beyond this world. I would prefer to find myself in another world, after death, with the people I knew and loved in life. It would be comforting to believe this. However, this belief provides only a conditional promise of life in such a world. It also carries the threat of ending up in a world of misery after death.

Rituel d'emportement
BY Marie-Claire Bancquart
(Le Temps qu’il fait /
Obsidiane, 2002)

I have one last question, and it is about the title of your anthology, Rituel d’emportement (Ritual of Anger).

It is a title that seems contradictory, because a ritual is something intended and staged, and a fit of anger seems to be the opposite. But I think that in poetry, you must have both. A writer must work very hard and work all the time. Writing is really a ritual, a ritual of researching human destiny. There is an anger involved in thinking about our destiny, because it is, in the end, death. There is anger in not wanting to use the codes that are often presented as necessary to talk about our destiny, such as morality, religion, society, et cetera. So when these codes enter into your writing, the writing becomes filled with anger. It is necessary that your writing be composed of things outside of the current morality, things apart from what contemporary society thinks of as “correct.”