Modern French Poetry may have begun with Charles Baudelaire’s Les Fleurs du mal – The Flowers of Evil – in 1867 but it
catches fire with the 16-year-old Arthur Rimbaud’s “lettre du voyant” – the letter of the seer; and poem Le Bateau ivre – The Drunken Boat (both written in 1871). After a particularly nasty fight in Brussels in July 1873 (where Verlaine shot Rimbaud and went to jail) Rimbaud returned to his detested home-town of Charleville and finished off his Illuminations and A Season in Hell. Then Rimbaud simply stopped writing poetry. He was around the age of 20. Thence begins Rimbaud’s long series of wanderings which eventually prompted Verlaine to describe him as “…the man with foot-soles of wind”. The road for Rimbaud was a central element in his life and writing. Forever escaping into the future the whole concept of “departure” promised new worlds for him. From London to Cologne, from Java to Cyprus, from Brussels to Aden, from Paris to Harar, all of these journeys were the source of an abundant correspondence-he may have stopped writing poetry but his letters are full of inflammable opinions and descriptive impressions. “Semelles de vent” (Wind soles) is a musical project based on the wanderings of the former poet. The work will be based on collections of field recordings and compositions for instrumental ensemble. Walking is the central motif in this project; readings and extracts from his letters punctuate the music.