Equinoxes: Joy!

The Foundation brings together poets, writers and musicians for an evening of poetic readings through pictures and music on the theme of joy.

Curating: Barbara Polla

 

Joy is a serious matter.

It is not about joy, no.

Nor is it about what is called happiness, a term constantly misused by the prescribers of well-being.

May my joy remain.

A man gets up early to go and plough an acre of land. It is still dark, man gets ready, leaves his house, finds himself under the cosmic vault. Joy is the awareness of this position. Of the importance of ploughing, of being that ploughman and, at the same time, the awareness of the disproportionate relationship between the minuscule size of the field and the infinity of the cosmos. At the same time.

There is in joy an element of self-assertion. Of oneself and of others. Being oneself in the world. Dissolving in the world. Letting love and fear in. For joy is also fear, it is often too great for us, it swallows us up. Joy contains something unknown, destabilising and at the same time it places us deeply in the world. Joy makes us light. It is never superficial: it is from its depth that our lightness flows. With it we can dance. Turn to madness. To sing. Watching a child being born. To write. To be, together.

May my joy remain.

And let poetry say it.

Barbara Polla, January 2021.

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Guest readers: Atsoupé, Nathalie Guiot, Hsin-yun Tsai, Mélanie Leblanc, JiSun Lee, Olivier Liron, Fabrice Melquiot, Eugénie Paultre, Elodie Perrelet, Aude Polito, Barbara Polla, Joana Preiss, Ruppert Pupkin, Curtis Santiago, Fanny Sintès, Xavier Veilhan.