Jean Orizet, a poet, anthologist, traveler, and publisher, has died at the age of 89. His wife, Isabelle Orizet, confirmed his death on Wednesday, September 16, to AFP. Born on March 5, 1937, in Saint-Henry, a village between Marseille and L'Estaque, he leaves behind a body of poetic and prose work that has been translated into a dozen languages. Orizet was a co-founder of the magazine Poésie 1 and, along with Philippe Héraclès, of the publishing house Cherche Midi, dedicating more than six decades to promoting and publishing poetry. Orizet helped create Poésie 1 in the late 1960s, aiming to reach a wider audience than traditional poetry magazines. Sold at a low price, the magazine helped establish Orizet as a cultural mediator, committed to making poetry accessible to a broader public without simplifying it. This mission continued in publishing. In 1978, he co-founded Cherche Midi editions with Philippe Héraclès. Their partnership combined different approaches: Héraclès brought humor and irreverence, while Orizet focused on poetry. Over time, the publishing house expanded its offerings to include French and international literature, documents, testimonies, essays, and beautifully produced books. Orizet guided Cherche Midi for nearly three decades until it joined the Editis group in 2005. He also published his own works and several anthologies, including Les Cent Plus Beaux Poèmes de la langue française. Orizet's personal literary career began with Errance, published in 1962. As a traveling poet, he often explored themes of displacement, memory, and time. In the 1970s, he developed the concept of "in-between," which he later formalized in Histoire de l'entretemps, published by La Table Ronde in 1985. He went on to publish many collections and narratives, including Le Voyageur absent, La Peau du monde, La Cendre et l'étoile, and Le Regard et l'Énigme, which compiled fifty years of his poetry in 2008. His travels were not limited to his books—he carried out numerous missions abroad for the cultural services of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and for the Alliance française. Orizet received several prestigious awards for his work, including the Max-Jacob prize and the Guillaume-Apollinaire prize. In 1991, he was awarded the Grand Prix de poésie by the Académie française for his entire body of work. The Society of Writers also honored him with its Grand Prix de poésie in 2009. Elected to the Académie Mallarmé in 1981, he served as general secretary and then president before becoming president of honor. He also held leadership roles at the French PEN Club, which he presided over in the 1990s. In 2025, at nearly 88 years old, he published L'Étincelle du temps with Glyphe editions. Described as a blend of memoir, diary, and prose poetry, the work reflected on his journey as a reader, editor, traveler, and poet, as well as his friendship with the writer Claude Érignac.