Page 4 - Catalogus 36 Henri Chopin 2015

And last but not least:
Most likely these are the only pages left from a very

first version of the novel. The corresponding chapters
in the 1961/1970 texts are totally different.

5. ‘Suite 63 du DRM’
Original manuscript. Title page + 21

p. (recto only), written in blue and black pen.

Pages numbered from ‘160’ till ‘179’, containing
‘Chapitre XX (p. 160-172), Chapitre XXI (p. 172-

177), Chapitre XXII (178-179)’.
Title page (on different paper stock) written in

firm black felt pen ‘Suite 63 du DRM / non

retenue / ̀ ne pas publier sans mon accord
HC.’
Price on request.

Further reading:

Henri Chopin: Avant-garde pioneer of sound poetry by Fŕd́ric Acquaviva

Cf. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/feb/05/poetry.culture

Towards the end of the second world war, Henri Chopin, who has died aged 85, escaped from a forced labour camp in Olomouc, in what is now the
Czech Republic, after it had been bombed. He then spent time with the advancing Red Army, until, recaptured by the Germans, he and inmates of
concentration and extermination camps were sent west on a Nazi "death march".

Thousands died on those journeys and it was then that he listened to the voices of his fellow marchers, sounds which would infuse his work for the
rest of his life. In the 1950s Henri created sound poetry, capturing breaths and cries made by his voice and body. He was, said his friend William
Burroughs, an "inner space explorer", but the Frenchman remained a solitary figure, outside any artistic grouping, almost the only exponent of his
art, and almost certainly the only poet to record sounds and movements by swallowing a microphone. He then remixed the results in recording
studios in France, and, following the route of his performances, in Sweden, Germany and Australia.

[.] Henri's work was born in the wake of the French avant-garde movement lettrisme, a next step after Dada and surrealism. He published his
first volume, Signes, in 1957. In 1964 he created OU, one of the most notable reviews of the second half of the 20th century, and he ran it until
1974. OU's contributors included Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Gil J Wolman, Fraņois Dufr̂ne, Bernard Heidsieck, John Furnival, Tom Phillips, and
the Austrian sculptor, writer and Dada pioneer Raoul Hausmann. [.]

Arriving back in Paris in 1945, he took many jobs, but, unable to make a living, enlisted in the army in 1948. He was sent to fight in Indo-China.
Invalided out with malaria in 1952, he began working in Longueil Annel, in northern France, with delinquent youngsters. It was then that he

married Jean Ratcliffe, who was working in France after graduating in French from Manchester University. His books included Le Dernier Roman
du Monde (1971), Portrait des 9 (1975), The Cosmographical Lobster (1976), Pósie Sonore Internationale (1979), Les Riches Heures de l'Alphabet
(1992) and Graphpoemesmachine (2006). Henri also created many graphic works on his typewriter: the Typewriter poems (also known as
dactylopòmes) feature in international art collections such as those of Francesco Conz in Verona, the Morra Foundation in Naples and Ruth and
Marvin Sackner in Miami, and have been the subject of Australian, British and French retrospectives. [.]

Henri Chopin, poet and artist, born June 18 1922; died January 3 2008

Antiquariaat De Slegte - Wapper 5, 2000 Antwerpen – kris.landuyt @ deslegte.com – 0031 (0) 3.231.66.27 – BTW. BE 0455 023 038