Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (18 May 1907 in
Reims,
France – 31 December 1943 in
Paris) was a
Frenchavant-gardepoet and co-founder (with
René Daumal,
Roger Vailland and
Josef Šíma) of the artistic group and magazine Le Grand Jeu. The group, associated with
surrealists, was "excommunicated" from the movement by
André Breton. Gilbert-Lecomte used drugs, in particular
morphine, for both artistic and sociological reasons. As was predicted in his poetry, his death was the result of an infection caused by the use of dirty hypodermic needles.
"Coma Crossing: Collected Poems", Schism Books, 2019, is the most comprehensive bilingual anthology of his poetry and "Theory of the Great Game" (Atlas Books, 2015) gives a hefty selection of his prose, along with that of René Daumal and other members of "Le Grand Jeu."
Bibliography
Le grand jeu (nos 1, 2, et 3)
Testament (1955)
Sacre et massacre de l'amour (1960)
Tétanos mystique (1972)
Lettres à Benjamin Fondane (1985)
Monsieur Morphée empoisonneur public (1966)
Correspondance (1971)
Arthur Rimbaud (1971)
L'horrible révélation… la seule (1973)
Œuvres complètes, 2 volumes (1974–1977)
Caves en plein ciel (1977)
Neuf haï kaï (1977)
Poèmes et chroniques retrouvés (1982)
Mes chers petits éternels (1992)
La vie, l'amour, la mort, le vide et le vent
Joseph Sima (2000)
Le miroir noir
Black Mirror: The Selected Poems of Roger Gilbert-Lecomte (Station Hill Press, 1991)
The Book is a Ghost: Thoughts and Paroxysms for going Beyond (Solar▲Luxuriance, 2015)