When poet and publisher Pierre Seghers published his poetry anthology Le Livre d’or de la poésie française, the last poem included was Sang (Blood) by Jean Venturini. The author was unknown and his only book Outlines (1939) was out of print. The poem and its author soon joined the cult/legendary/obscure pantheon. Outlines (in English in the original text) was reissued in 1986 but this edition too has become hard to find.

Jean-Bernard Venturini was born in 1919 in Nabeul, Tunisia, of Corsican parents. At 15, he moves to Senegal and starts writing. Enrolls in the Navy in 1939 and joins the submarine Morse (walrus in French) . The Morse was lost with all hands in June 1940, sunk by friendly mines in the Mediterranean. A few months earlier, teenage poet maudit Jean Venturini had published his first and only book.

(our translations)

From The Call:

I broke the so-called eternal chains

I killed memory and steeled my soul

Family, love, friends, hate, I sold everything

Forsook everything. I strangled simple

Pleasures and the monotony of happiness.

 J’ai brisé ces chaînes que l’on croit éternelles / Et j’ai durci mon âme et tué les souvenirs / Famille, amour, amitié, haine, j’ai tout vendu, / J’ai tout renié. J’ai étranglé les joies tranquilles / Et les bonheurs monotones. L’Appel

BLOOD

In my veins there’s no blood, just water

the bitter water of oceanic

gales…

Quiet seas swell the sails in my chest

preludes they are to the vertigo of

hurricanes…

Tall masts and iron bows lifted by tides,

galleons tainted by gold, sail through

like storms…

An octopus stretches the creaky silk of

her fingers, her un-mooned eyes blinking

with mine…

The mystic rings thrown overboard in Adriatic

lagoons, I own them all, to gift away to

the one I love…

When I love I feel the raging surf in my hands

I fondle foamy waves that slip away from

my desire…

SANG
Dans mes veines ce n’est pas du sang qui coule, c’est l’eau,/ eau amére des océans
houleux…/Des bonaces, des jours pleins gonflent ma poitrine, /préludes aux blancs vertiges
des ouragans…[Des poulpes étirent la soie crissante de leurs doigts; et leurs yeux illunés clignotent
par mes yeux…/Des galions pourris d’or, des mats, des éperons de fer/ passent en tumulte dans
des marées énormes…/Tous les anneaux mystiques jetés aux lagunes adriatiques,/ je les ai pour les donner
a celles que j’aime…/j’ai des ressacs mugissants dans mes mains aux heures d’amour…/Et trop souvent j’étreins d’irréelles écumes
blanches/ qui fuient sous mon désir de chair…
(Outlines)