Le Nouveau prépare l'ancien

In 2008, Phillipe Bootz published a monograph version of Alire to commemorate the publication of his programmed poems that date to 1977-1978 (matrix poetry) and to 1988, the first version of Alire (0.1) that was presented in 1989 at the Centre Pompidou. In Alire 13, Bootz presents the unedited and difficult to find works. One of the works that make part of this compilation is “Le Nouveau prépare l’ancien” which dates to 2001. At the beginning of this cinematographic poem, one hears the voice of a man that explains the instructions to navigating the program. It is not clear to whom the voice belongs, but it is present through the entire poem. A message on the screen informs the user that he may skip the intro by clicking on the screen. The voice then continues to give a description of the poem saying that one can click on the words of the poem to see what can happen. After this introduction, the poem begins with the images of hour glasses. At the same time, the same narrator talks about time and describes it as “the first friend of man”. The voice continues to explain the relationship between man and time. On the screen, the works “le nouveau… prépare… l’ancien”, the title of the poem, appear. With these words and images of hour glasses, one has the feeling of time and its effect on mankind due to time’s control of life. Shortly after, the screen is divided in two images. The image on the top half is still an hour glass; the image on the bottom is also an hour glass behind what appears to be a window as it rains. However, the rain in this situation is that of letters: o’s and n’s that fall as rain. In the corner of the bottom image one can find the word “ici” which may be interpreted as the letters falling on “here” or on “us”. The narrator describes these letters that fall like the sand in the hour-glass. However, he recognizes the difference between the rain of the sand and the rain of the words because the words can take different forms. He continues with a comparison of the word “mot” and the word “temps”. He notices that one only needs to add an “s” to “mot” to make the word plural and describes it as funny. In the case of “temps”, it already has the “s” in the singular that would make it plural. This comparison is interesting because the narrator presents the idea that “temps” is singular, but at the same time plural in terms of spelling. There can be a single time, but it carries an effect over all lives, similar to the letters that fall on “us”. The metaphor of the rain of words is reinforced by the sound of a storm in the background. The voice describes the words as violent, but a violence that one wants to last a long time. At the end, the voice mentions death, since it is the result of time. Thus, one has the feeling that the goal of literature is to organize words in a way to escape death, the result of time. This last remark of the narrator towards time, one may interpret, as the message of the poem. The poet does not want to be forgotten; therefore he wants his literature to be read. Only the words and the forms they take can escape time and death, because the rest of us depend from the hour glass.