My name is Patrice Barberet, I am a poet and a fabulist, and the creator and the editor of this personal website dedicated to my fables and to my poems. 

This website is mainly dedicated to my first collection of fables and poems, Les Fables du Lavoir (Fables from the washhouse), but is also host to my blog and to the presentation of my other collections of poems to be published sooner or later, but rather later, alas, given the number, lenght and magnitude of all these diverse projects (they are still works in progress): a huge collection of four seasons poems called The Brahmaputra, a long poem or hymn to the ancient roman goddess Diana (to be followed by one to the same greek goddess Artemis) called Diana's fishing net, a very long sea poem in prose called The walnutshell (The cockleshell) and the related poems in verse written by its captain, a collection of poems called Coolings and refreshments, a collection of three long poems called The Bathers. And last, but not least, a collection of Greek poems written by greek horses of ancient times who followed somehow the example of Pegasus by taking things one step further. 

The Walnutshell is at this moment in time a long sea poem of around 500 pages written in prose, studying closely the walnutshell as a mere natural object, but also the metaphor it gives birth to as a little boat, as a precarious boat at sea, therefore also as a lifeboat and as a boat at sea taken into the midst of a storm. It draws its inspiration from the poetical works of French poet Francis Ponge, but also from other great sea poems such as The Odyssey (Homer), The rime of the ancient mariner (Coleridge), The drunken boat (Rimbaud), The Ode to the sea or Sea-Drift (Pessoa). 

Coolings and Refreshments is a collection of poems in prose using also the free verse. This is a big poetical project and a lifetime project. It wants to give a poetical voice to a beautiful and precise region of France, namely the valleys of river Loue and of river Lison, The Loue valley and the Lison valley, nestled in the eastern part of France, close to Switzerland, in Franche-Comté, and already famously depicted by French painter Gustave Courbet in his paintings, a late cousin of mine! It will give a poetical voice also to the three ages of man: namely youth, maturity and old age. Each great age of life will have its own collection of poems dedicated to it. The first collection to be published will be of course the one dealing with youth, and will contain also poems about Ireland and England. The overall collection will be a poetical study and description of the evolution of my personal relationship to these two valleys across time. 

All this means I am working on several long and thick books (collections of fables and poems) at the same time, which is a bit of a feat, if not an impossible challenge. It is a mountain to climb. These poetical projects are so numerous and so ambitious French readers are not better treated than foreign readers at the moment. I am not publishing a lot. For various reasons, I am self-published. I do not consider that having a publisher constitutes a particular achievement of any kind or any sort. Hopefully, one day, you will be able to read my fables and my poems in your own language if you cannot read French. Foreign publishing houses are (or will be) welcome to contact me in order to try to make this happen. I would pay attention of course to the quality of the projects and translations. 

My first collection of fables is divided into four books. These four books will be making a series (and will be followed by others in the years or rather decades to come) and will be available to French readers as ebooks you will be able to purchase and read if you can read French. They will be preceded by a long foreword written by Master Fox himself. This collection of fables is probably the best one which was ever written since the days of Jean de La Fontaine in the seventeenth century. It tries hard to renew the genre itself just like La Fontaine did in his own time.  

I will keep updating my website and this section of my website with fresh information about the publication of my fables and poems. And hopefully, one day, I will be able to offer to foreign visitors an english version of this website, as well as perhaps versions of this website in other foreign languages.

Thank you for your time and visit! 

Patrice Barberet