HOW I WROTE SOMETHING FOR JOYLAND

Vincent Tholomé : « I'm a French-speaking writer. I'm not used to writing in English. I wrote in English as a child. I used an exercise I use with children during my workshops when they are not used to writing poetry. I started with proverbial sentences chosen in a dictionary. Then I modified them. The English text came first. With my poor English vocabulary. Then I translated it in French. Trying, during the process, to express something about the philosophical, ethical and political world around me. OK. I'm a French-speaking writer. OK OK. But I'm not French. I'm Belgian. So, impossible for me to write something seriously about the philosophical, ethical and political state of the world. I'm so Belgian. Impossible for me to stop laughing when I speak/write about the state of the world. Especially when I'm writing as a child learning to write poetry for the first time. Because I was like a child. HOW TO WRITE is my first poem in English. I mean : directly written in English. I liked it. When you write for the first time a poem in a foreign language, you have to recreate all the things you know about writing, about poetry. Rebirth. Challenge. You are naked. Completely. I liked it. Walking naked in English. Walking naked for English-speaking people. Brr. Quelle sensation !! »