Pierre Garnier
1928 - 2014
Born in Amiens (France), died in Saisseval (France).
Beginning in 1962, the French author and poet Pierre Garnier (b.1928) announces himself as a poet of 'spatialism'. In 1963 in the review Les Lettres, of which he is co-editor, appears his Manifeste pour une poésie nouvelle, visuelle et phonique [Manifesto for a new poetry, visual and phonic]. Garnier sends De Vree a copy with the telling dedication: 'Without the amity of Henri Chopin and in the hope of an active collaboration'. With his 'visual' and 'phonic' poetry, Garnier indeed explicitly positions himself against the 'phonetic' and 'objective' poetry which at that time was being propagated by Chopin in Cinquième Saison. The fact that De Vree in 1965 publishes a composition in Les Lettres and that the following year - together with Ian Hamilton Finlay and the 'accursed' Garnier - is named to the editorial board of Frans Vanderlinde's new Dutch review Vers Univers, will go no way towards improving the relationships. In 1968 Garniers anthology Spatialism et poesie concrète appears by Gallimard.