A Bouquet to Bip: A Tribute to Marcel Marceau

Published in Exile: A Literary Quarterly, Volume 1, Number 3 (Toronto, Exile Editions, 1974), pp. 93-123. Copyright © Janine Zend, all rights reserved, reproduced under license.
​Robert Zend appears alongside Roch Carrier and Morley Callaghan in this edition of Exile magazine.
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Zend honours Marceau and, by extension, [his mute clown] Bip by finding aspects of them within himself and creating work that is a spiritual collaboration and a testament to their friendship. A Bouquet to Bip is remarkable for being so openly and sincerely woven of their close and affectionate brotherhood. [...]

Although their meeting was relatively brief, Zend’s friendship with Marceau was extraordinarily fruitful in their exchanges of poems and drawings. The ideas and feelings that raised Marceau’s miming to a subtle and ingenious artistic expression resonated with Zend’s own explorations of self and other and the tension between human universality and the divided self. 

- Camille Martin, "Robert Zend: Poet without Borders, Part 10. International Affinities: France (Marcel Marceau)," rogueembryo.com, February 26, 2014

Marcel Marceau's response to receiving the "bouquet:"

Robert Zend, Marcel Marceau, Zend, Marceau, Bip, Bip During Zend
Marcel Marceau (Bip), in "Bouquet to Bip," p. 123.
Once Robert Zend told me that I was a poet of gestures. Once I told him he was a mime with words. Robert Zend is a poet in every moment of his life.
- Marcel Marceau
Marcel Marceau, Marceau, Robert Zend, Zend, Bip, Bouquet to Bip
Marcel Marceau (Bip), in "Bouquet to Bip," pp. 121-122

Enjoy a couple of samples and their sources of inspiration:

"Khalif Harun Al Rashid," by Robert Zend pp. 106-107
to the Creator of THE MASKMAKER

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"The Maskmaker"
Sketch by Marcel Marceau

"I must detach myself wholly from my face. At the end, when he cannot wrench the laughing mask off, the face laughs and the body cries. I divide myself in two."
- Marcel Marceau
(quoted in William Fifield, "The Mime Speaks: Marcel Marceau," The Kenyon Review 30.2 (1968), p. 161., in Camille Martin, "Robert Zend: Poet without Borders, Part 10. International Affinities: France (Marceau)," rogueembryo.com, February 26, 2014)

"The Family Tree of the Alphabet," by Robert Zend, p. 117
To the Author of Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book

Marcel Marceau, Marceau, Robert Zend, Zend, Family Tree of the Alphabet, Bip and the Butterfly, Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book, Bouquet to Bip, Exile Editions
Robert Zend, Copyright © Janine Zend, 1974, all rights reserved, reproduced under license.
One of the most beautiful and poignant [pieces in 'Bouquet to Bip,' entitled 'The Family Tree of the Alphabet,' is a concrete poem consisting of letters in a connect-the-dot configuration of a butterfly [see above]. The image renders homage both to Marceau’s sketch “Bip Hunts Butterflies” [see right] and to George Mendoza, author of the children’s book Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book [see above right]. Zend’s butterfly shows an imaginary evolution of the modern alphabet originating from punctuation marks in the body of the butterfly and branching out into more evolved letters along its wings. 

- Camille Martin, "Robert Zend: Poet without Borders, Part 10. International Affinities: France (Marceau)," rogueembryo.com, February 26, 2014)

From The Marcel Marceau Alphabet Book
by George Mendoza

Photographed by Milton H. Greene (Doubleday & Co., 1970)

Bip and the Butterfly:
Marcel Marceau interviewed by Todd Farley
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