Life in the Folds - Henri Michaux

Life in the Folds by Henri Michaux, translated by Darren Jackson / ISBN 9781939663061 / small 168-page paperback with flaps from Wakefield Press *** Life in the Folds, originally published in French in 1949, is the Belgian-born author and artist Henri Michaux’s (1899-1984) most direct exploration of the many forms of suffering, a laboratory of fantastical, destructive energies in which the poet presents his methods for dealing with the world around him. The first two sections offer such items as the Slapping Gun and the Man Sling and present scenarios that call for defensive measures such as the "Constellation of Jabs" or “The Trepanned Patient.” Also included is one of Michaux's more complex fantastical-anthropological travelogues, “Portrait of the Meidosems,” an account of the ways and manners of a population of vague ectoplasmic figures, anguished filaments of sorts that struggle to exist but are never allowed to sit still. This volume charts a turning point in Michaux's life and i