Jean Sénac was an Algerian pied-noir poet, whose European heritage, open homosexuality, and advocacy of a native Algerian literature put him in conflict with the nascent Islamist government. He hosted a popular radio broadcast and helped to see many new writers into print, himself publishing multiple volumes of poetry increasingly under the sway of Allen Ginsberg and other radical American writers. “Edgard’s Lessons” predates those influences, written in the summer of 1954, shortly before the Algerian Revolution, when he was desperately in love with a young man about whom we otherwise know nothing except his name. Sénac lived his last years in poverty in Algiers, murdered in the night of August 28, 1973, for reasons much speculated about.
If singing my love is loving my country,
I am a soldier who won’t go back on what he said.
I hold his name tight like a nettle bouquet,
I walk in his footsteps, and I share his bed.
I am a soldier who won’t go back on what he said.
I hold his name tight like a nettle bouquet,
I walk in his footsteps, and I share his bed.
Summer camouflages squalor on the beaches,
So many hungry bellies bronzed by the sun
In town there’s ivy that evening interweaves
With thistles of pain, this meal their only one.
So many hungry bellies bronzed by the sun
In town there’s ivy that evening interweaves
With thistles of pain, this meal their only one.
We can forget in one easy kiss, guileless,
The blood spilled at Casa or Diên Biên Phu,
There’s always a time beauty goes into exile.
The blood spilled at Casa or Diên Biên Phu,
There’s always a time beauty goes into exile.
A time heat tears us from our sheets, in two.
When I lose I carp, but in combat I recoup
The right to cherish you and to save our isle.
When I lose I carp, but in combat I recoup
The right to cherish you and to save our isle.
© Jean Sénac. By arrangement with the estate of the author. Translation © 2012 by Douglas Basford. All rights reserved.
