Jean Vodaine Biographical Note
Jean Vodaine was born on July 6, 1921 in Volce, today in Slovenia, then in the Veneto Juliana. At the age of three, his family, the Kaucic family, moved to Moselle. He obtained the Certificate of Studies in June 1933 and a shoemaker’s CAP in 1938.
In 1947, he published Rose et noir , his first poetry collection, and got married. He begins a correspondence with Gaston Chaissac and Jean Dubuffet. In 1951, he launched the Courrier de Poésie with Edmond Dune. He worked as a laborer in the Thionville blast furnaces (1951-1953). Then he became secretary to Bruno Durocher (Editions Caractères) in Paris and met many poets (1954-1955). During 1955, he returned to Basse-Yutz.
Electrician worker, site accountant, assistant quantity surveyor at Alsthom, he travels on the railway tracks. A new collection, Les Pauvres Heures , appeared in 1955. Three years later, he launched the review La Tour aux Puces (1958); but he soon suffered an accident at work (1960). In 1962, he published the first issue of the journal Dire . At the Mas de la Greffe in Montpellier (1964-1966), he continued this publication which he printed himself, then he returned to Basse-Yutz.
In 1969, he presented a retrospective exhibition of his graphic work, Funny Birds , in Basse-Yutz. He begins to print several books. The Fable of Animals Remained Alone on Earth , by Jean Vodaine, is given to Georges Pompidou by the mayor of Metz. He teaches at the School of Fine Arts and Applied Arts in Metz and divorce (1972). He then moved to rue des Allemands, in Metz, in a former shoe repair shop, and launched the project for a Maison de la Poésie (1973), which was unsuccessful. He publishes Serenade for a sleeping dog and presents a retrospective of his graphic work in Pont-à-Mousson. Dire magazine ceased publication in 1984.
In 1985 he published Maixines . He finally obtains French nationality. He then lives in a small village in the north of Meurthe-et-Moselle. On August 8, 2006, at the age of 85, he died in a retirement home in Pont-à-Mousson.