The poetic writing that is here identified as écriture shares a provenance with language-centered writing in the United States and Canada: the “language games” of Ludwig Wittgenstein’s logical positivism and the objectivist heritage in poetry associated with Louis Zukofsky among others.

Minimalist poetic processes of composition have inspired a similarly attentive practice and stance toward composition as a material process keying on the physical presence of a breathing person. “I live the text as a body,” writes Anne-Marie Albiach (Interview).

Écriture privileges the nominal flatness of language, the “différance”—as theorized by Jacques Derrida—that allows signs to defer to one another in relational chains that inscribe meaning. Similarly influential is Michel Foucault’s construction of “enunciation.” Social factors that constitute a regime of discourse often exist in an unresolved tension with the intentional use of language. “Such investigation strips bare an indeterminate time, / abasing the relapsed, gestures from this time forward” (Albiach, from “Incantation” in A Geometry, 16).

Attesting to both the lexical minimalism of écriture and its poststructuralist formalism, the poets associated with this style of writing (Emmanuel Hocquard, Claude Royet-Journoud, Jean Daive, in addition to Albiach) pursue a synchronic reading of the network of words on the page, their alignments and folds. In “Diptych,” Hocquard asks, “Where is the dividing line?” and comes to associate the line with shadows and creases, “The dark / not / a limit” (Late Additions, 51), comparing the page to a relief map.

Words do not mold the edges that distinguish “outside” from “inside.” “Outside and inside / are useless / when we speak / of a crater’s edge” (51). The play of perception creates a drama of indeterminacy, leaving its trace as écriture. “The beast dies in the crease of the page,” writes Claude Royet-Journoud in the poem “i. e.”—reducing metaphor to page layout. “We must set foot in the blank space,” he continues, inscribing an orientation for the reader as subject within the space of enunciation.

There is no image, “beast” or otherwise; there is text or writing. The white space in the middle of a line, the use of quotation, the refusal of metaphor are minimalist acts, holding the reader’s attention: “the image / held up the loss / ‘it was there’ / eaten by his question” (The Maternal Drape or The Restitution). Albiach similarly relates the figure to page as a turning in of perception on itself, “the internal figures dissolve” (“Figures of Memory,” in A Geometry, 21).

For the poets associated with écriture, the image is a presence, not a trope, “involution of discourse” (Albiach, from “Winter Voyage,” in Mezza Voce, 62). Royet-Journoud registers the written name as a black body, the light framing a surface, “black body in which to lodge the name / the light is only on the table” (“The Overwhelming,” from “Namework,” in The Notion of Obstacle, 44). Jacqueline Risset, in The Translation Begins, stages the drama of written discourse this way: “having responded already and listening in order to respond” (24).

Jennifer Moxley in her translator’s note writes, “whenever language is present semantics will attempt a takeover” (96), catching exactly the relationship between language theory and writing practice that animates the attention to detail that distinguishes écriture. This poetry is available to readers of English because of the passionate dedication of small literary publishers like those identified below.

Ecriture Feminine

Bibliography

Albiach, Anne-Marie. A Geometry. Translated by Keith Waldrop and Rosmarie Waldrop. Serie d’Écriture. Providence, R.I.: Burning Deck, 1998.
———. Interview. Henri Deluy, Joseph Guglielmi, Pierre Rottenberg. Action Poétique 74 (1978): 14.
———. Mezza Voce. Translated by Joseph Simas. Sausalito, Calif.: Post-Apollo Press, 1988.

Hocquard, Emmanuel. Late Additions. Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop and Connell McGrath. Peterborough: Spectacular Diseases, 1988.
———. A Test of Solitude. Translated by Rosmarie Waldrop. Serie d’Écriture. Providence, R.I.: Burning Deck, 2000.

Maulpoix, Jean-Michel. “La poésie française depuis 1950.” Poésie, prose, critique littéraire. Available online. URL: http://www.maulpoix.net/Habiter1950.html. Accessed on April 22, 2025.

Risset, Jacqueline. The Translation Begins. Translated by Jennifer Moxley. Serie d’Écriture. Providence, R.I.: Burning Deck, 1996.

Royet-Journoud, Claude. i. e. Translated by Keith Waldrop. Serie d’Écriture. Providence, R.I.: Burning Deck, 1995.
———. The Maternal Drape or The Restitution. Translated by Charles Bernstein. Windsor, Vt.: Awede, 1985.
———. The Notion of Obstacle. Translated by Keith Waldrop. Windsor, Vt.: Awede, 1985.

Categories: Literary Terms and Techniques, Literature

Tags: Albiach écriture, Anne-Marie Albiach poetry, avant-garde French poetry, écriture analysis, écriture character study, écriture criticism, écriture meaning, écriture plot, écriture poetics, écriture summary, écriture themes, Burning Deck Press poets, Claude Royet-Journoud analysis, Derrida différance poetry, Emmanuel Hocquard poetry, FIELD POETICS, Foucault enunciation poetry, French poetry post-1950, Jacqueline Risset translation, Jean Daive criticism, language-centered writing, minimalist poetry analysis, poetic discourse analysis, poetry beyond the page, poetry of presence, poststructuralist poetry, Wittgenstein poetry influence