What can against poetry all this river of lava

If in the world we are in
A song was long gone
To another man’s song
If he were born in a thousand years
Match the birds know it
And what can against birds
Transparent
The hydra of time»

(“HOURS”, in The Book of Ophelia)

Dear Jean-Jacques de Dardel,
President of the National Book Centre,
Dear Jean-François Colosimo,
Madam President of the Jury, dear Silvia Baron Supervielle,
Members of Anne Perrier’s family and all
his admirers, friends, poets, some of you having come from far away,

Anne Perrier couldn’t make the trip to join us, but she
told us, through his family here, of the immense
The joy of the prize.

Created in 1981, the National Poetry Grand Prix has rewarded each
year, until 1996, a French-language poet for the
his work. I wanted to revive this high distinction.

The support of my ministry to poetry borrows today different
forms. The Ministry of Culture supports all forms of creation
literary, including poetry, through the support of the National
Book. Are concerned about 1000 publishers of poetry, ten titles of poetry
per year by publisher, from magazine to micro-edition, from poetry collection
in large publishing houses to those who often insure their
own distribution and dissemination.

My ministry also supports the Spring of Poets,
whose mission is to encourage the reading of poets and to
know the poetic repertoire in all its diversity, without exclusive.

Thanks to such initiatives, the perception of poetry has changed: everywhere,
poets, booksellers, librarians, pioneering teachers
have testified in favor of poetry, especially contemporary, and have
helped to slowly erode the prejudices that sometimes separated the public
of works.

Through the National Grand Prize for Poetry, which also includes a
significant, I wish to mark the very high recognition of my
ministry for the poets themselves and for poetry as art:

«Poetry forbidden fruit
Deadly belladonna
Overflowing
Universal feeder»
(Ibid.)

For an art reticent to all official recognitions, it was necessary a
rare personality, herself adept of the «nomadic ways», «rooted
nowhere but in the imagination” in his own words, for
accept the responsibility of presiding over the jury of the Grand Prix national de
poetry. Silvia Baron Supervielle was able to compose a jury
of eminent personalities from various horizons, gathered by
correspondence of which she has the secret. My most thanks
are destined for him, as well as Aline Bergé, Christian Bobin, Muriel
Bonicel, Florent Georgesco, Hélène Henry, Michel Lafon, Gérard Macé,
Daniel Mesguich, Bruno Racine and Salah Stétié, who agreed to be
members.

The work that is today consecrated had already been praised by the critics
as one of the most important in contemporary language poetry
French. Before Doris Jakubec gives you a presentation of
the work of Anne Perrier, I would like to pay tribute to her by
very beautiful terms of Gérard Bocholier in his preface to La voie nomade,
which was struck by how much the little material on earth
like the ballast of every poem» - Anne Perrier is a fan of
short forms – capable of “incomparable glare”:

«Poverty my only
My hands slowly discover you
Under the oblique snow
You have the face of love»

The first woman to receive this award, Anne Perrier joins the greatest:
Francis Ponge, Aimé Césaire, André du Bouchet, Eugène Guillevic,
Edmond Jabès, Michel Deguy, Bernard Noël, Yves Bonnefoy
Philippe Jacottet.

Paying tribute today to Anne Perrier and her work is also
its successive publishers: Seghers, L'Escampette, and
publishers from French-speaking Switzerland, Zoe, La Dogana, Empreintes, etc.
forgive me for not being able to quote them all. Between France and Switzerland
Romande, these houses all had the flair to give to this work
all the visibility and recognition it deserved.

Before we look at an excerpt from Anne Perrier’s interview with
Bernard Blatter, I would like to thank the company
PLANS FIXES, which provided us for this ceremony the very
beautiful images that we will see now.