Circular poem

Educational activities

Write a text based on repetition.

Head is a perfect example of a visual object exploiting the repertoire of circularity. It is not difficult to imagine similar examples for the art of dance (from childish dance to whirling dervishes), even less so for music (from refrains to repetitive music). On the other hand, what would this correspond to for the text?

We traditionally learn at school to ban repetitions in written expression, both because they are the hallmarks of oral language and in the idea that a successful style must use all the lexical and grammatical variations of the French language. However, in poetry or the novel, it widely uses the processes of repetition and loop, either for musical purposes or rhetorically, to support an idea. (There is in fact a figure of speech which precisely codifies this usage: epanadiplosis.) Working with children on circularity processes allows them to measure the latitudes in the use of language, to see its rules and limits as expressive possibilities rather than as constraints.

We propose to work from the generalized use of loops in the poetry of Christophe Tarkos (born in 1963, died in 2004), in particular in Caisses (1998), which acts as an inventory with regard to the process. If it is complicated to contextualize his work for 9-11 year olds, we can simply note that his poetry on the one hand develops in improvisation and on the other hand is nourished (in addition to the tradition of the 20th century avant-garde) from everyday language: banal conversations, media speeches, etc. – which brings it closer to more popular spoken poetry movements, such as slam. The goal of the activity will be to distinguish several types of loop effects in these poems and to manipulate them to produce a text based on an initial idea/expression provided by the teacher.

We can start by putting the children directly in front of a poem, by having them read it aloud for example (but each one follows with the text in front of them), and by discussing their first impressions. “There is milk everywhere” (p. 9), “On a cushion on a sofa” (p. 15), “I make greenery” (p. 17) or “Real life is having a car” (p. 29) are interesting starting points. It is a question of highlighting this impression that the poem “goes in circles”, that it revolves around a subject, an initial formula, which it seeks to exhaust. Then present the work as writing “in the manner of” Christophe Tarkos in this poem.

For the choice of theme, you should propose a very common everyday object or situation, as in the poem “There is milk everywhere” (p.9) – for example: “television”, “bicycle”, “green vegetables”, “handbag”… We can also propose a ready-made formula, an image that is flat from being used, as in the poem “We can also live in a village” (p. 22) – for example: “to succeed you have to work”, “Friends are important”, “Every day He’s bigger.”

References

• The basic text: Christophe Tarkos, Caisses (P.O.L., 1998).
• A selection of texts by Christophe Tarkos and a good introduction to his entire work: Le Petit bidon and other texts (P.O.L., 2019).
• Critical texts on Christophe Tarkos: Christian Prigent, “Sokrat à Patmo”, preface to Écritspées (P.O.L., 2008); Philippe Castellin, “Christophe Tarkos “poet of reading””, foreword to L’enseignement (P.O.L., 2014); Samuel Lequette, “Reading Tarkos”, article in the online magazine Sitaudis, “Publications” section, January 8, 2009.