CHOMO
Poèmes illettrés pour un langage parallèle

Catalog reference number: IPS 0224.
Book-CD release date: March 1, 2024.

Accordion-style book with facsimiles of graphic poems by Chomo written in his phonetic script, accompanied by a CD featuring four major poems recited by Chomo and a booklet transcribing the texts into standard French. Limited to 200 copies.

Book-CD

Chomo is a unique French creator (sculptor, painter, architect, poet, musician, filmmaker) who lived almost the entire 20th century, including 40 years as a hermit in the Fontainebleau forest near Paris.

Chomo recorded hundreds of texts, poems, and music alone in his Préludian Art Village in Achères-la-Forêt on old tape recorders, sometimes layering texts and sound experiments. He wrote his poems with a particular script and using his own phonetic alphabet, rejecting all societal constraints.

The book reproduces some of his graphic poems. The CD contains four recordings of poems, even sound-poems, thanks to the archiving initiated by Laurent Danchin. The booklet also includes the transcription into "academic" French ("cacademic" as Chomo would say...) of the original texts by Chomo reproduced here.

Photos of Chomo's graphic poems by Clovis Prévost.
Text transcription for the booklet by Denis Tagu and Claude Prévost.
Graphic design by Chiara Scordato
Printed by Chat Noir (Rennes)
Digitization of Chomo's tapes and cassettes by Laurent Danchin and Michel Geiss Mastering by Michel Geiss.
Proofreading by Christophe Petchanatz
Production by InPolySons
Co-production by the Association des Amis de Chomo and Patrimoines Irréguliers de France.