Jacques Izoard

He taught French in secondary technical and vocational education for many years. Under the pseudonym Jacques Izoard, (from the mountain pass), he began writing poetry in 1962 with the release of a first opus: Ce manteau de pauvreté (This cloak of poverty).^[2]

Izoard's poetry is characterized by a simple structure and refined and the desire to sound out the words. His work, prolific, has a sixty collections of poetry and an essay on Andree Chedid. Summarizing his poetic system, Lionel Ray speaks of it as a secret and tender attachment to what is the limit of perceptible, but which may have the body ^[3]

The two volumes of his complete works were published in editions by la Difference in 2006 and that same year, the University of Liège devoted a symposium.^[4]

The day after the funeral of his friend Gaston Compere, he died aged 72, suffered a heart attack at his home in the Liege neighborhood of Sainte-Marguerite.^[5]

He led the review of 25 (or M25) created by Robert Varlez in 1977, where he was joined by Frances Favretto in 1979. He inspired the "school of Liège" with the challenge was to publish contemporary poetry in the spirit of the magazine Odradek (30 numbers from 1972 to 1980). According to the expression of Kafka "Odradek" describes an object that moves all the time, and does not catch leaves.^[6]

Very attached to his city, he spent over 30 years of organizing in Liege Night of Poetry. Attentive to the poetry of others, he discovered among other Savitzkaya Eugene, with whom he shared his house, street Chevaufosse, and has encouraged many poets, writers and artists such as Nicolas Ancion, Karel Logist, Serge Delaive, William Cliff, Robert Varlez, Jean Marie Mathoul, Selçuk Mutlu or Ben Ares.

• 1979 Mallarmé prize
• 1999 Prix Alain Bosquet, for Le Bleu et la poussière
• 2001 Prix triennal de poésie, for Le Bleu et la poussière