OPENING UP TO THE POETRY OF THIERRY METZ (meeting-reading)

As part of the Mental Health Information Weeks, the Marguerite Audoux Library will host two events.

The first, a writing workshop, will take place on the péniche L’Adamant, a floating day center for adults suffering from mental health disorders. It is full. Registration is closed.

The second will take place at the library. It will be a Reading-meeting dedicated to the work of Thierry Metz.

A laborer, mason, and farm worker, Thierry Metz died in 1997 at the age of forty, leaving behind a considerable, dense, and profound poetic work, made of short texts. Thierry Metz is notably the author of "Journal d'un manoeuvre", the book that made him known, and of " l’homme qui penche", written during a stay at the psychiatric hospital of Cadillac, in Gironde, while he was struggling with alcohol and depression.

In September 2025, Gallimard editions gathered six of the poet's collections in one volume titled Lettres à la bien aimée et autres poèmes. It is prefaced by Isabelle Lévesque and postfaced by Éric Vuillard.

The evening will be hosted by Isabelle Lévesque, accompanied by Marie Violaine Brincard, director of a film about Thierry Metz, and Françoise Metz, the beloved from the collection. Isabelle Lévesque's artist books will be exhibited at the library, along with works on loan from the Galerie Papiers d’art. A bibliography on working-class poetry will be available to the public.

Before the evening, two writing workshops will be organized on the Adamant focusing on the poetic work of Thierry Metz. Half the participants will be patients from the Adamant, and the other half will be library users who will discover the "Adamant" care facility, its library, bar, art creation studios, radio, etc.

The workshop is now full. Registration is closed.

The texts will be read later at the library, at the end of the evening.

Isabelle Lévesque was born and lives in Normandy. She writes a poetry column for Quinzaines (the Nouvelle Quinzaine littéraire) and contributes to Europe, as well as Terres de femmes, Diérèse, and Terre à ciel. In 2018, she received the Yvan-Goll International Francophone Poetry Prize for Voltige! (2017). She enjoys working with painters (Jean-Gilles Badaire, Christian Gardair, Colette Deblé, Gaetano Persechini, Caroline François-Rubino, Marie Alloy, Fabrice Rebeyrolle) and especially collaborating on the creation of artist books.

Marie-Violaine Brincard is a French director and an agrégée (certified teacher) of Modern Literature. After working for many years on Rwanda and dedicating her first essay to a survivor of the Tutsi genocide: D'un monde à l'autre (2007), Marie-Violaine Brincard directed Au nom du Père, de tous, du ciel, a film awarded several times at festivals. Her subsequent projects, now co-directed with Olivier Dury (2014, L'homme qui penche in 2020), are part of a similar political and aesthetic approach: offering a space of visibility to those who have none.

Françoise Metz

Françoise Metz was the inspiration for many poems. She was the first reader of what Thierry Metz wrote and helped him in his life as an intermittent worker to leave room for moments of writing in harsh material conditions. She also played an important role in the evolution of his writing.

Trailer for the film "l'Homme qui penche" directed by Marie-Violaine Brincard and Olivier Dury