Jean Lescure

Jean Lescure (14 September 1912 – 17 October 2005) was a French poet.

Lescure was born in Asnières-sur-Seine. In 1938, he published his first plaquette of poems, "Le voyage immobile", and launched the review "Messages" (two issues in 1939: "William Blake" and "Metaphysics and poetry").

During the Occupation Lescure resumed editing "Messages" in 1942, printed in Brussels, with Paul Éluard, Raymond Queneau, Michel Leiris, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Bataille, Jean Paulhan, Guillevic, André Frénaud. "Domaine français" (Messages 1943) was printed in Geneva (Louis Aragon, Gaston Bachelard, Albert Camus, Paul Claudel, Paul Éluard, André Gide, Michel Leiris, François Mauriac, Henri Michaux, Francis Ponge, Romain Rolland, Raymond Queneau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Paul Valéry).

Jean Lescure became co-director of the clandestine review "Les Lettres françaises" and was one of the founders of the underground organization, the "Comité National des Ecrivains". After the Liberation he was appointed director of the French Radio. He was an early member of Oulipo.

Lescure translated Shakespeare's "Measure for Measure" (1949) and the complete works of Giuseppe Ungaretti (1953). He wrote introductions to the work of many French artists (Bertholle, Chastel, Estève, Gischia, Lapicque, Pignon, Prassinos, Singier, Ubac) and essays on the philosopher Gaston Bachelard and André Malraux. He died, aged 93, in Paris.

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