So I'm going to read you a couple of the translations.
And I'm not--
I'll read just two in French, and then I'll
read the translations just so you
get a little taste of the original,
with my apologies for my accent.
What this is a co-authored work.
The poet Virginie Lalucq meditated
on the only extant photograph of Fortino Samano, who
was a Zapatista lieutenant and counterfeiter.
That photograph of Zapatista moments before he's
staring nonchalantly at the firing squad
that is about to execute him.
And she saw an exhibition of the photographer
of the Mexican Revolution, Casasola,
and was fascinated with this.
So she's meditating on what is the photographic image
transposed to the poetic image.
What is it doing?
What can it do?
And Jean-Luc Nancy, a philosopher of aesthetics,
was very taken with her series.
So he wrote a series of commentaries,
which became really a meditation on Poetry, the poetic image,
but also Poetry with a capital P.
So I'll just read you a few of these.
Combien mes bureaux étaient-ils charmants !
L'image ne dit rien du règlement de compte central de la fusillade
et de légers liserés de sang qui [INAUDIBLE]
Pour l'instant, je survis.
Pour l'instant, mon casier judiciaire se vide.
Et encore sans la somme.
Si l'exécution fut sommaire ou non,
le mur a des allures de figurant derrière.
Au premier plan, l'image n'est pas un statu quo,
pas plus que je ne suis un héros ou un acteur de cinéma.
L'image ne dit pas si mon rythme cardiaque
s'accélérera.
À cet instant précis, je souris largement,
je suis fort, je suis le pire salaud qui soit.
Je me fusille, je fume mon dernier cigare,
après quoi, me relève et vous souris encore.