Odes à chacun
Inscribed and signed: “à Madame Maurice Genevoix et vous-même. En, ce jour d'Épiphanie, de poésie et communion amies. Henri Pichette.”
A fine copy, enriched not only with a fine presentation inscription to the Genevoix couple but also with several autograph corrections and variants, made in the same red felt-tip pen as the inscription.
A close friend of Gérard Philipe, and published by Paul Éluard and Max-Pol Fouchet immediately after the war, Henri Pichette devoted his entire life to poetry. His Épiphanies, published in 1948 following a staging the previous year with Gérard Philipe and Maria Casarès, constitute a poetic play in total rupture with the Parisian theater scene of the time.
In Ode à chacun, Pichette pays tribute to “humble” trades, from the laborer to the poet. The poems first appeared in 1959 in the journal Esprit, before being collected in this Gallimard edition two years later. It is one of the texts Pichette continued to rework afterward, producing a definitive edition in 1988 that grew from 282 to 516 lines. The corrections found in this copy show how, from the moment of publication, Pichette already wished to revise its content.
From the library of Maurice Genevoix (inscription and bookplate).