“The full value of man is in his seeking, his vocation, his desire.”

Marie Noël (1883-1967)
Poet

“When Marie was 15 years old she asked “three completely mad things from God: to suffer much, to be a poet, and to be a saint.” She told no one, but her father understood that she was going through a grave interior crisis, and he was worried about her extreme anxiousness, and the excesses of her uncontrollable imagination. One day, having had enough, he said to her, “Oh! you have a whole back-shop inside of you!” – a colorful image that reflected his daughter’s state very well, with her head so full of secrets. “A back-shop,” wrote Marie Noël, “was just what was needed. How could you spread out for everyone all the dreams which had just barely begun to bud, all the new-born hopes that too piercing a light could have killed.” Little by little, all those things did come out of the “back-shop.” Hidden in her room, Marie wrote her first poems to express her profound apprehension about life, and her need to be loved. She kept all this hidden in her heart until, one day, she confided her secret to her godfather, Raphaël Périé, an agnostic and a poetry enthusiast, and gave him her notebook of verses. He listened to her, read her poems, recognized her vocation as poet, and advised her to work on her art. Then, at the first chance, he spilled the beans to Louis Roget who was astonished, saying, “Your daughter is a poet. Her art expresses a passionate purity — like snow which is burning.” …“No one should be surprised by my somber chant despite my candid joy…” she said, “Hadn’t they ever contemplated the miracle of the Christmas rose? The Christmas rose, sad and flowerless all year long. The Christmas rose whose name is Ellebore-Mélancolie and who holds black poison in her roots… But when Christmas comes, by God’s grace, she appears out of the gray winter and comes out from under her somber leaves like a flourish of little lighted candles. That’s how I am, all darkness, but sometimes, illumined by grace. And I have a name that says it all: Marie Noël.”

Jean Peyrade (20th century)
Writer