Thousand Times Broken

Henri Michaux: One of the most influential French writers and visual artists of the twentieth century, Belgian-born Henri Michaux (1899-1984) was known for his continual journeys into perception and consciousness. Throughout the almost sixty years of his creative life, Michaux published over thirty books of poems, narratives, essays, travelogues, journals and drawings. His visual work was shown in central museums of Europe and the United States, including the Guggenheim in New York and the National Museum in Paris. In 1960 he was awarded the Einaud Prize at the Biennale in Venice. Five years later, he refused the French Grand Prize for Letters as a protest against the award culture in the arts. Throughout both his visual and literary work, one can trace the struggle for, and his disappointment in not finding, a universal language through gesture, mark, sign, and the word.Gillian Conoley: Gillian Conoley was born in Austin Texas. She is the author of seven collections of poetry. Editor and founder of Volt magazine, she is Professor and Poet-in-Residence at Sonoma State University. She lives with her family in a small town just north of San Francisco.