Joë Bousquet

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Joë Bousquet (Narbonne, March 19, 1897 - Carcassonne, September 28, 1950) was a French poet.

Wounded on May 27, 1918 at Vailly near the Aisne battlelines at the end of the First World War, he was paralysed for the rest of his life, and lived a life largely bedridden, surrounded by his books. His physical incapacity and constant pain (for which he took opium) caused a retreat from the world, but also became the starting point for a extensive body of poetry and writing. He contributed poetry to the Carcassonne poetic review Cahiers du Sud, and carried on a correspondance with many writers and friends, including Louis Aragon, André Gide, Paul Eluard, and Max Ernst.

Bousquet became friends with the surrealists, and his poetry is often associated with them. He also purchased paintings by Salvador Dalí, Max Ernst, Jean Fautrier, Wols, André Masson and Hans Bellmer, and was painted by Jean Dubuffet.