Alain Veinstein's 'Voix seule' Reviewed by Pascal Boulanger

Pascal Boulanger reviews Alain Veinstein's poetry collection 'Voix seule', published by Éditions du Seuil in the 'fiction & cie' series. The review explores themes of death, absence, and ontological void, drawing parallels to Marcel Schwob's 'La Croisade des enfants'. Veinstein's narrative poems depict a life that can only be represented through death, with death as a fold of consciousness that leaves the living lost and absent. The catastrophe, rooted in childhood, manifests as a tomb-world where emptiness must be heard as a mute fixation. The voice, marked by lack of path and dereliction, carries an ignorance to those willing to listen. The review references Franz Rosenzweig's 'stateless of time' and includes a quote from Veinstein: 'I am without attachments, without ties / Cunning is he who attributes a childhood to me (...) It's a question of ear / I only sink / into the blackish mud / as soon as I put one foot in front of the other.' Death speaks, making sarcasm a condition of truth.