Pierre Albert-Birot (22 April 1876 – 25 July 1967) was a French avant-garde poet, dramatist, and theater manager. He was a steadfast avant-garde during World War I, through the magazine Sic he created and published from 1916 to 1919. He was a defender of Futurism and Cubism. The Dadaists considered him one of their own, although he never took part in the movement. He declared himself the founder of the ″nunique" school (from the Greek adverb νῦν / nun, now), a literary school of which he was the only master, with no disciples. After the war, he distanced himself from the Surrealists, to whom he had, with Guillaume Apollinaire, given their name, and he created a solipsistic body of work and tried his hand at everything, printing his own books, cultivating the childlike joy of artistic creation, as he himself wrote: ″I find my joy in poetic creation and I find my joy in the creations of my hands. ... All of this is just like a game, I love to play, I keep the kid alive.″ Despite being mocked by the Surrealists for his pretensions to excel in too many arts, and being criticized by Philippe Soupault as an extravagant man without real poetic talent, he earned the praises and friendships of Francis Picabia<ref>Francis Picabia, ″Opinions et portraits″, 391, n° 19, october 1924, p. 2-3.</ref> and Apollinaire who dubbed him ("Pyrogen"), because of his "fiery" temperament as an innovator and disruptor. Later, Gaston Bachelard praised the depth of his philosophical views, thanking him for ″giving the body better consciousness than a philosopher″ and he influenced various poets such as Jean Follain, Pascal Pia, and even today, Valérie Rouzeau. Chilhood and adolescence Pierre Albert Birot (he has not yet incorporated his second name into his surname) was born on April 22, 1876 in Angoulême. His mother, Marguerite, ″embroidered, played the piano and sang.″ His father, Maurice Birot, ″was constantly starting up businesses, but not very solid ones.″ The family spent their summers not far from Angoulême, at the Château de Chalonnes. There, the young Albert-Birot, still in high school, set up a glove puppet theatre, wrote plays, and invited the village to performances. After his father made some bad business deals, the family left the Château de Chalonnes and moved to Bordeaux. Pierre received private lessons in Greek, and gave his teacher ″an exceptional wooden cutout cigar case made by