Henri Chopin | Poetry | The Guardian

Henri Chopin

Towards the end of the second world war, Henri Chopin, who has died aged 85, escaped from a forced labour camp in Olomouc, in what is now the Czech Republic, after it had been bombed. He then spent time with the advancing Red Army, until, recaptured by the Germans, he and inmates of concentration and extermination camps were sent west on a Nazi "death march".

Thousands died on those journeys and it was then that he listened to the voices of his fellow marchers, sounds which would infuse his work for the rest of his life. In the 1950s Henri created sound poetry, capturing breaths and cries made by his voice and body. He was, said his friend William Burroughs, an "inner space explorer", but the Frenchman remained a solitary figure, outside any artistic grouping, almost the only exponent of his art, and almost certainly the only poet to record sounds and movements by swallowing a microphone. He then remixed the results in recording studios in France, and, following the route of his performances, in Sweden, Germany and Australia.

Taking account of the smallest sounds - like vibrations of his nasal hair - he turned them into the likes of Les Vibrisses, a vast musical and poetic fresco. Henri created more than 100 audio poems, recorded on many discs, including Pêche de Nuit (1957-59), which became the soundtrack of the eponymous film by the Belgian artist Luc Peire in 1962, Vibrespace (1963), Throatpower (1974), Le Corpsbis (1983), Les 9 Saintes Phonies (1984-87) and the oratorio Copernic & Co (2007).

Henri's work was born in the wake of the French avant-garde movement lettrisme, a next step after Dada and surrealism. He published his first volume, Signes, in 1957. In 1964 he created OU, one of the most notable reviews of the second half of the 20th century, and he ran it until 1974. OU's contributors included Burroughs, Brion Gysin, Gil J Wolman, François Dufrêne, Bernard Heidsieck, John Furnival, Tom Phillips, and the Austrian sculptor, writer and Dada pioneer Raoul Hausmann. Henri was one of the few people who went to visit Hausmann in Limoges and he published him, establishing a historic bond to Dada.

Henri was born in Paris, one of three brothers, and the son of an accountant. Both his siblings died during the war. One was shot by a German soldier the day after an armistice was declared in Paris, the other while sabotaging a train.

Henri started work, aged 12, in a hardware store in 1934. In 1940, with the fall of France, he became one of the refugees heading out of Paris for the south. This pattern of running and hiding carried on until Olomouc.

Arriving back in Paris in 1945, he took many jobs, but, unable to make a living, enlisted in the army in 1948. He was sent to fight in Indo-China. Invalided out with malaria in 1952, he began working in Longueil Annel, in northern France, with delinquent youngsters. It was then that he married Jean Ratcliffe, who was working in France after graduating in French from Manchester University. His books included Le Dernier Roman du Monde (1971), Portrait des 9 (1975), The Cosmographical Lobster (1976), Poésie Sonore Internationale (1979), Les Riches Heures de l'Alphabet (1992) and Graphpoemesmachine (2006). Henri also created many graphic works on his typewriter: the Typewriter poems (also known as dactylopoèmes) feature in international art collections such as those of Francesco Conz in Verona, the Morra Foundation in Naples and Ruth and Marvin Sackner in Miami, and have been the subject of Australian, British and French retrospectives.

From 1968 to 1986 Henri lived in Ingatestone, Essex, but with the death of Jean in 1985, he moved back to France. Seven years ago, with his health failing, he returned to England, living with his daughter and family at Dereham, Norfolk. Henri was considered by many a new Antonin Artaud, but head and shoulders above that French playwright, poet, actor and director. At the time of his death, he was in his wheelchair still performing works, which will remain great memories for those who heard him.

He is survived by his daughter Brigitte and son Denis.

· Henri Chopin, poet and artist, born June 18 1922; died January 3 2008

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