Reporter Volume 26, No.23 April 6, 1995

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
News Bureau Staff
Christian Prigent, one of Europe's leading theoreticians and
practitioners of experimental poetry, presented a bilingual poetry
reading with Ray Federman, Distinguished Professor of English and
Melodia E. Jones Chair in French, last week in the Center for the
Arts.
	The reading was one of several events connected with Prigent's
five-week tenure as Jones Chair Visiting Professor in French, a
position previously held by Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Michel
Serres and more than 50 other French literary figures since the
position was established in 1932.
	The event offered an intriguing exposition of the meaning and
aural qualities of language, which Prigent emphasizes in his readings.
Prigent, for instance, presented one poem in the persona of an
out-of-breath ancient Greek actor required to present a lengthy speech
segment before he is allowed to inhale again. 
	Federman translated several of Prigent's pieces, some of
which, in subject and expression, had much in common with Federman's
own writing. If the French was incomprehensible to most and sometimes
deliberately unintelligible to all, the sense of the poetry as an
"oral, sonorous, rhythmic performance," to use Federman's terms, was
not lost on the audience.
	The poetry reading and a public lecture, "What Use Poetry?" at
12:30 p.m. Thursday, April 20, in 438 Clemens Hall are among several
events presented as part of UB's 1995 Wednesdays at 4 PLUS literary
series. Federman will  translate the lecture from the French.
Prigent is also presenting a free public seminar in French on the
"Genealogies of Modernity," Mondays and Fridays at 4:30 p.m. in 930
Clemens Hall.
	The seminar and lecture will undoubtedly reflect Prigent's
disquietude about what is happening to language and literature today
-- the malaise that he believes has settled into the literary arts
perhaps as a consequence of the proliferation of advertising lingo and
other media-induced modes of expression.
	The seminar also focuses on the similarities and differences
between "modernism," which to the English-speaking world generally
indicates a specific period, and "modernity," which is a French term
describing what is new or "modern."
	It examines the evolution of poetry in French and English from
the end of the 19th century to the present and the influence that
avant garde French and English writers have had on one another and a
discussion of the ways in which modernism  has taken shape in cinema,
painting and other arts.
Instead of striving toward "meaning" or
	"sense," a writer who is modern plays with its irregularities
and throws language off balance. In doing this, says Prigent, "he or
she throws the audience off balance as well, raising questions about
what language means and how it defines our reality."
	Prigent was born in 1945, and in the 1960s and 1970s, belonged
to what in France was called the literary avant-garde movement. Among
his other activities, political and literary, he founded TXT, the most
radical magazine of this movement, which he edited from 1969-83. TXT
published the writings of such noted French experimentalists as
Francis Ponge, Pierre Guyotat, Antonin Artaud and Valre Novarina, as
well as those of many German, French and American writers.
	Prigent's literary output, which is prodigious, includes 10
works of fiction, 12 collections of poetry, eight collections of
essays, several translations ; radio and audio tape productions; a
screenplay, and works of journalism.         o