Marie Closset

Marie Closset (August 16, 1873 – July 20, 1952) was a Belgian poet. She wrote under the name Jean Dominique.[1]

She was born in Brussels and was educated under the system of education developed by Isabelle Gatti de Gamond. She chose to write under a male "nomme de plume" so that her work would be judged on its own merits; the name came from a character in a novel by Eugène Fromentin. Her poems were first published in small literary magazines and later in the Mercure de France. She published several collections of poems:

• La Gaule blanche (1903)
• L'Anémone des mers (1906)
• L'Aile mouillée (1909)
• Le Puits d'azur (1912)
• Sable sans Fleurs (1926)[1]

She was a member of a non-conformist group known as the "Peacocks". In 1913, Closset helped form the Institut de culture française. After living in Ixelles for a time, she moved to Uccle in the early 1920s. She was a mentor for the American poet May Sarton, who took Closset as inspiration for her novel The Single Hound.[1]

Closset died in Uccle at the age of 78.[1]

She appears in the neo-impressionist painting Young Women By the Sea (or The Promenade) by Théo van Rysselberghe.[2]

Her poem Le Don silencieux was set to music by Gabriel Fauré.[3] The composer Gabriel Grovlez also set poems by Closset to music.[4]