Oster studied at the Collège Sainte-Croix de Neuilly, the
Lycée Buffon, the
Lycée Louis-le-Grand, and
Sciences Po. His first poem,
Premier poème, was published by
Mercure de France in 1954 thanks to support from
Pierre Jean Jouve.
Quatre Quatrains gnomiques was published in
La Nouvelle Revure française thanks to
Marcel Arland and
Jean Paulhan. His first collective work,
Le Champ de Mai, was published in 1955 and won him the
Prix Fénéon. In 1958, he was awarded the
Prix Max-Jacob for
Solitude de la lumière. He then departed to serve in the
Algerian War, returning to
France in 1959. In 1961, Jean Paulhan helped set up a meeting between Oster and
Saint-John Perse, who gave him great poetic motivation. He worked with
Claude Tchou, who helped Oster cover
Pascal Pia and the
Bibliothèque nationale de France. Alongside Tchou and Jean-Claude Zylberstein, he published the first complete collection of Paulhan's works. In 1992, he was awarded the
Grand prix de poésie de la SGDL. He contributed to the Babel collection, published by
Actes Sud, while living in
Mazamet. In June 2019, Oster was awarded the Grand Prix de Poésie of the
Académie française. Pierre Oster died in
Paris on 22 October 2020 at the age of 87. ==Publications==