A native of France where she was trained as a dancer, Brigitte Byrd first moved to Hawaii in 1989 then relocated to Mississippi (briefly), Florida, and most recently, Georgia. She is the author of Song of a Living Room (Ahsahta, 2009), The Dazzling Land (Black Zinnias, 2008), and Fence above the Sea (Ahsahta, 2005). New poems and an essay recently appeared in anthologies Online Writing: The Best of the First Ten Years (Snow*Vigate Press, with an introduction by Brian Evenson) and The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Prose Poetry: Contemporary Poets in Discussion and Practice and in literary magazines such as Interim, Mississippi Review, Lilies and Cannonballs, Quarter After Eight, Tarpaulin Sky, Coconut Poetry, and Denver Quarterly, among many others. Brigitte’s work has been nominated twice for a Pushcart Prize and is currently nominated for a Georgia Author of the Year Award 2010. She is the first-prize poetry winner of the St. Petersburg (Russia) Summer Literary Seminar 2000. She received a PhD in English/Creative Writing from Florida State University in 2003. Brigitte currently lives in the southern crescent of Atlanta and is an Associate Professor of English teaching Creative Writing at Clayton State University. She is also an editorial reviewer for Confluence: The Journal of Graduate Liberal Studies and writes micro-reviews for Oranges & Sardines.
Autobiographical Statement
I was born in Paris, France, and was raised as a young child by my maternal grand-parents in Montbron (Charentes), a village in the South-West of France. We lived on an island in the middle of the Tardoire River. I had a rather bucolic upbringing complete with dogs, fishing, swimming, flower-picking, biking, and delicious tartines. Early on, my grand-father passed on to me his love of nature, animals, and reading. One day, as he came back from one of his many business trips, he brought back a beautiful leather-bound collection of La Comtesse de Ségur's work. Since my grand-mother had converted part of the attic into a sort of magical play-loft, I spent many hours reading and day-dreaming about the heroines of de Ségur's children's novels. My favorite character was Camille from Les Petites Filles Modèles, after whom I named my first dog (another gift from my grand-father) and my daughter (much later on in life).
As an older child, I lived with my father in Paris as a result of my grand-father's unexpected death. I suddenly was propelled into a completely different world. I remember roller skating on the busy side-walks behind my new friend, my father's dog, and having to slalom between cars to follow her across the streets. My father enrolled me in a private catholic school where I received an excellent education. It is at Sainte Elisabeth's that I developed an interest for the arts. I took piano lessons, voice lessons, dance lessons, and participated in theatre productions of Molière's plays. It was a very cool school where we had the opportunity to spend a month in the Alps during fifth grade, which I did. Besides having to wear the mandatory, awful, navy wool hat with white motifs and white pompom, living with my classmates in a chalet was a very exciting adventure. Until I started high school, I wore a uniform and walked in line, two-by-two like Madeline, to go to the swimming pool and to the stadium—a weekly event. I had dreams of becoming a ballerina, which my father attempted to thwart by lulling me into participating into equestrian sports. Then I dreamed of being a veterinarian, and he was reassured.
Beside Biology, my favorite subject was History. Not only did I love learning about the different periods of the French History, but also I was mesmerized by the world's ancient civilizations. I am still fascinated with Ancient Egypt and Ancient China, and I love French and Chinese period movies. Actually, while I lived with my father, my maternal grand-mother often came to spend a week in Paris and took me to the movies. She just loved cinema and certainly passed her passion for films on to me. For years, I have tried to watch at least two or three movies per week. Anyhow, I used to love staying with her in a hotel near the Opera, catch a cab to go to the movies, and grab a croquet-monsieur in a Parisian brasserie afterward. During that time in Paris, I spent many short breaks at my paternal grand-parents in Normandy. My grand-mother loved animals and raised rabbits and sheep, beside the dog. There were also bee-hives, a wonderful garden, and a pond. Often times my grand-father would play the piano for me and tell me terrific stories. He was the first one to introduce me to the work of Johann Sebastian Bach and to anthropology.
At the age of fifteen, I returned to live with my maternal grand-mother. This time we lived in Angoulême, Charentes, which is the birthplace of novelist Balzac, among other French historical figures. You can imagine the Balzacian world as you walk along the narrow cobble-stoned streets of Angoulême. I finished high-school at the lycée Saint Paul, another private catholic school perched atop ancient fortifications. I had a typical French adolescence hanging out at café terraces, smoking dark tobacco, and drinking espressos with my friends after school. After graduating with a Baccalauréat with an emphasis in Biology, I went to Poitiers to attend Medecine School. That was a big mistake. I lasted six months. I have to say that my decision to pursue medicine was not all that rational since it was based on the distance between my student apartment and the nearest possible school, by foot, which turned out to be Medecine School. At least, I can say that I thoroughly enjoyed the daily walks through the old medieval city while they lasted. After that, I tried Law School in Bordeaux on a whim, indeed did not like it at all, and moved back to Paris.
Being very young and living in Paris was very much fun and contributed to my education in a worldly kind of way, the way living in a metropolitan area opens up the mind, I think. I saw tons of movies, concerts, and performances. I also read a lot and started to entertain the thought of writing. I had always written long letters to my friends and family and had kept a journal for years, but it was then that I thought more seriously about writing. I also started to form my own political opinions and became involved in politics. When the entire government collapsed with the death of Francois Mitterand (who had attended the lycée Saint Paul in the late 1920's), I felt very much disillusioned. Since I had kept up with dance classes, I decided to audition with a dance company. It was very interesting to suddenly enter another completely different world, the world of spectacle. When we toured, I had the opportunity to discover Asia and Eastern-Europe, for instance. And what is funny, I think is that I really took a slow boat to China… I suppose that there is some truth about writers needing to experience life before writing. At least, in my case, this is true.
After a couple of years in the company, I decided to visit my mother who lived on Maui (Hawaii), was mesmerized by the beauty of the island, loved the carefree life style, and hung out there for two years before moving to the South where I started college at the University of West Florida. I received a PhD in English/Creative Writing from Florida State University in 2003 and currently teach creative writing at Clayton State University, which is a member of the Georgia University System located in the Southern crescent of Atlanta. I like being in academia. I like the intellectual demands of it. I like being around students. I like the flexibility of my schedule. There are things I dislike, of course, but really, I think I finally made the right choice. How else would I be able to sit with my dog and my cat a couple of afternoons a week, listening to music, writing or reading? How else would I have raised my daughter by myself and been home as much as possible with her (and the dog and the cat)? I like that she grew up in academia and was exposed to the life of the mind earlier on. I took her to poetry readings, fiction readings, plays, dance productions, and we have seen many movies together. I took her to coffee shops and bookstores. She took me to horse riding lessons, horse farms, horse shows, and tack shops. She can also do pretty much anything on a computer, which is very cool and helpful to me. So far, we have traveled abroad to France many times, of course, and once to Russia.
I think that I found a balance raising a child while I was pursuing my education and writing seriously. Suddenly, I was preparing my daughter's lunch box, leaving little notes for her to find under her sandwich, and reading intensively for my studies, and after a while, I started to incorporate a writing schedule into my life. This is really how I was able to write my first book, Fence above the Sea. Having a minimal writing discipline and squeezing a writing schedule in the midst of a myriad of work and domestic duties allowed me to write my other books The Dazzling Land and Song of a Living Room, as well as finishing a new manuscript while starting my new life as a college professor in Atlanta four years ago and preparing my daughter for college. Learning to systematize my life helps me remain balanced, although I always need a short period of emotional destabilization to enter a project. Moving from a college town to a suburban town south of Atlanta knocked me off balance, at first, and then I realized that I really like the landscape in Georgia. It reminds me of the Charentes region with its tall oak trees and pine trees, rolling hills, charming sandy creeks and multiple lakes. And there are also huge magnolias, which I love. They remind me of my childhood when I thrived on climbing high up in a tree, pretending I was a squirrel and it was my home. And like a squirrel, I ended up carrying books and tartines in my tree. And of course, I grew to like Atlanta, which hosts a very nice music scene and the cultural life found in large cities. In fact the combination of country and urban life works very well for me because I can take a short drive to Atlanta and get stimulated intellectually before retreating in the woods to write--in isolation…
My early literary influences are Marguerite Duras and Milan Kundera, which I read in French when living in France. As I started a new life in the US and read in English, the respective works of Samuel Beckett and Gertrude Stein became my English language influences. About five or six years ago, I discovered Pascal Quignard's work (a hybrid work composed of nonfiction/fiction/& philosophy), and recently, I developed a particular interest in Simone de Beauvoir's creative work and philosophical work. So I guess that I am influenced by writers whose creative work merges with philosophy and poetry but is not poetry per say. That said, I love Anne Carson's work—but again, her poetic work is a hybrid work. And of course, I always read a lot of contemporary poetry, long works of fiction, and French "existentialist" philosophy. I also listen to alternative and world music and watch independent and foreign movies, which are essential parts of my creative process. The music helps me recover the mood of a work and stay within it as I compose, which is always a challenge since, like most everyone, I live a very fragmented life. Like books, movies are a way for me to better understand the human condition, and they often leave me in a sort of reflective mood…