The case of sorrow. “I am one of those / who do not fall”, of those who spread their tarred wings to go towards the desolation of life. In two discs (The world has split And Oceano Nox), Clara Ysé has established herself as a singer-songwriter. An art that she has had in her skin since she had a violin in her hands at 4 years old. It was his mother, the philosopher and psychoanalyst Anne Dufourmantelle, who gave him his first guitar. And it is with lyrical singing that Clara learns to sharpen her vocal cords. After a master’s degree in philosophy at the Sorbonne and courses at the Conservatory, Clara felt drawn to the art of the stage. Suddenly, “The fragile bridges / which tie me to the world / have given way”when his mother drowns while rescuing children. “I went through the looking glass”, that of impossible mourning, capable of causing grief that is sometimes suppressed, sometimes assumed. In order not to sink, Clara Ysé expresses herself through her songs. “You search in the fading day / A light that gives itself and asks for nothing / Like the music that comes from scratched worlds / The one that whispers courage to those who seek. » This quest continues in his first novel, Firing (Grasset, 2021), Vocation Literary Prize. There is something undeniably organic about her voice and her impressive writing. This takes yet another form in this first collection of poetry, Alive. A symbolic title for this thirty-year-old who enhances her prose. “The child writes in silence / He would like to say that this peace has entered his soul / and has taken up residence there. » His vibrant pen “dives his tongue into the invisible” and the unspeakable… “Pick up the lost words, the forgotten words / The words that your mother would have said / Listen to them in you they take refuge. » Far from pushing aside her sorrows, Clara gives them shine by tackling breakups with others, dreams or oneself. How, then, “Become sadness without dying of sadness / Become sadness and come out of sadness alive / Become sadness and future at the same time / Become sadness and tenderness and joy at the same time” ? His modest and musical inkwell clicks without sparing us. Whether she rocks us, wounds us or caresses us, Clara Ysé fills us with melancholy and poetry. The ghosts of childhood haunt her, she tries to stand up despite the scratches of life. This crossing reflects “the stubborn desire / To live in a world where courage / Is a way of honoring existence”. This is hardly obvious from day to day. If hope sometimes seems extinguished, it is lit again thanks to the power of friendship or love: “Love / I stretch out my hands / And the sky opens like a water lily. » Rebirth is not linear, but possible. “If you are patient / Then, one day, you see it appear, The Phoenix. » Today, Clara Ysé clearly feels “ […] alive / Freer than the day before ». Faced with the ambient violence, she wonderfully recommends: “Flee the world / Take the fireflies in your pocket. » A shock, and a charm that disarms us.
Clara Ysé
Alive
Seghers
Edition: 6,000 copies.
Price: €17; 280 p.
ISBN: 9782232147593
 – Livres Hebdo){kind=link}