Marjolaine Beauchamp reclaims her voice in 'Ce livre coûte cent mille dollars'

Marjolaine Beauchamp has spent her career delivering work that lands like a blow — as a dramaturg, poet, and slam performer, she has authored "Fourrer le feu" and "M.I.L.F.", each dense and uncompromising.

Her new collection, "Ce livre coûte cent mille dollars", is precisely what its title asserts: a declaration that the market does not dictate her story's worth. The book is structured as what Beauchamp describes in her own words as "a walk / an attempt at compilation / even of 'lesser' texts / even less literary sentences / an exercise in humility / because in the trail there is swamp / and it would be dishonest to abstract from it."

Some pieces were previously broadcast on radio; others are prefaced with italic notes in which the author comments on what follows, rendering herself vulnerable in ways that deepen the work's touch. The collection carries a striking poem about her brother Lou, preceded by Beauchamp's own observation: "It's the lot of intimate writing, it scratches walls, hearts, silences."

Constellated with drawings and photographs, "Ce livre coûte cent mille dollars" chronicles falls, hollow places, climbs back, and detours — both the author's and those of people rarely handed a microphone or a pen. The poems read as cries; the enumerations carry the force only Beauchamp knows how to marshal. Published by Hurlantes éditrices, 197 pages.