Ramuz saw writing as a craft. He enjoyed handling paper, Indian ink, pencils, scissors and glue to produce manuscripts that, as he grew more adept, became aesthetic objects and collectors’ items. Sheets of paper in a variety of colors, blue, black, turquoise or violet ink, red and blue pencil, paper cut out and glued back together—Ramuz was active, a doer. His liked to knead words like matter, and working with language went hand in hand with manual know-how. For him, becoming a writer meant taming this material until he had full mastery of it, in the same way as a winegrower masters his vineyard or a craftsman his handiwork.
« Meanwhile, in the square, Besson continued to make his baskets, telling the story of the country and then again, putting the lines of wicker one on top of the other, like the writer his verses or prose—telling the story of the country and its walls through the stems of wicker, putting some of them crossways then knotting the others into them—unbeknownst, unsuspected, very still and silent, in the square, under the plane trees, all alone in his gray shirt and green apron, moving his hands above his green apron. »
Passage du poète, 1923