What could a willow tree possibly tell us? The birds it sheltered. « One day I was playing a trumpet all alone in a splendid forest and the birds came to find some peace by my feet whenever I named them one by one by their names in pairs », thus begins, with Valère Novarina’s words, this enumeration of 1111 invented names ending his Speech to Animals. In the meantime the tree, so real as an image, sees its thick foliage being stripped away by the chainsaw. Up to the bone. (NF)
Michèle Waquant