... All of this is just like a game, I love to play, I keep the kid alive.″[1] 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[2] and Apollinaire who dubbed him Pyrogène ("Pyrogen"), because of his "fiery" temperament as an innovator and disruptor.

There, the young Albert-Birot, still in high school, set up a glove puppet theatre, wrote plays, and invited the village to performances.

From 1900, he also worked as a restorer for antique dealer Madame Lelong, a job he kept all his life and which provided the material for his novel Rémy Floche, employé.

From January 1916 to December 1919, Albert-Birot edited the avant-garde art magazine SIC: Sons Idées Couleurs, Formes, which featured writings by Futurists, Dadaists and Surrealists.

Pierre Albert Birot escaped general mobilization due to respiratory insufficiency during World War I,[5] and, according to his own words, was really born[8][9] during the creation of the magazine SIC in 1916, when he definitively adopted his artist name, adding his second name to his surname.

The title of the review, represented by a SIC carved into wood framed by two symmetrical F's, has two meanings; it is firstly the Latin word yes, standing for "a desire to constructively oppose the war that negates human values"[5] and more generally, a desire "to assert oneself through a complete acceptance of the world,"[5] and it is also the acronym for its subheading "Sons Idées Couleurs, Formes," which was an expression of the multiple activities of the Albert-Birot couple – Sounds for Germaine's music, Ideas for poetry, Colors for painting, and Forms for Pierre's sculpture – but aspired to become the motto for a "synthesis of modernist arts.

The publication stood out for its modernism, despite coming from a painter and sculptor trained by traditionalist Achard, a self-taught "Adamite poet[5]" who had not yet encountered the avant-garde.

[11] We see in the publication of this first issue the call, the outstretched hand of an isolated artist to avant-garde circles of which he was both completely unknown and ignorant.

The first to respond to this call was not a poet but the painter Gino Severini, whose impetus made SIC a true avant-garde magazine, as Albert-Birot humorously explains: ″Severini already had quite a few years of combat and research into ultra-modern art behind him, since he had been with Marinetti, the creator of Futurism, for a long time; naturally, for him, the first issue of my magazine was quite timid, but after talking to me he had the feeling that I was ready to become a true warrior for the good cause.″[12][9] The second issue, published in February, is devoted to the discovery of Futurism.

It reports on Severini's First Exhibition of Plastic Art of the War and other previous works, held at the Boutet de Monvel gallery from January 15 to February 1, 1916.

From their first meeting, organized by Severini in July 1916 while Apollinaire was convalescing at the Italian hospital in Paris, Albert-Birot asked him to write a play that he would direct, with the idea of non-realistic theater as the guiding principle.

Apollinaire proposed to subtitle it ″supernaturalist drama″; but Albert-Birot wanted to avoid any association with the naturalist school or the evocation of the supernatural, so they agreed on the word ″surrealist.″ The play, Les Mamelles de Tirésias, was created at the Maubel conservatory on June 24, 1917.

Thérèse's flying breasts were supposed to be represented by helium-filled balloons, but since the gas is reserved for the army, they settle for pressed fabric balls.

The play, which is a sell-out at its performance, has a taste of a Dada evening: already, due to the passionate reactions, the show is as much on stage as it is in the audience.

In January of the following year, Albert-Birot dedicates a triple issue of SIC to the memory of Apollinaire, and brings together the funeral tributes of Roger Allard, Louis Aragon, André Billy, Blaise Cendrars, Jean Cocteau, Paul Dermée, Max Jacob, Irène Lagut, Pierre Reverdy, Jules Romains, André Salmon, Tristan Tzara, etc.

According to the testimony of his friend Jean Follain (whom he met in 1933 and who remained one of his rare friends along with the painter Serge Férat, the novelist Roch Grey, and Roger Roussot), the widowed poet retired to a narrow dwelling on rue du Départ, refused literary fraternities, and printed his books, using his lever machine placed in his room, giving them the only advertisement of depositing them at the National Library.

In 1933, thanks to the recommendation of Jean Paulhan, Robert Denoël agreed to publish a first version of Grabinoulor, which is in two books (it will count six, once completed).

A new life begins for Pierre Albert-Birot in 1955, when he meets Arlette Lafont, a Sorbonne student who wanted to collect his testimony on Roch Grey.

The songs of his twilight have the same familiar turn as the poems of his beginnings.″[14] In 1965, thanks to Arlette's efforts, Gallimard published an augmented but incomplete Grabinoulor.

A banner did not hesitate to present it as "a classic of Surrealism," to the surprise, and even anger, of Albert-Birot, who had never been part of the group, signed any manifesto, or participated in any of the demonstrations.

Pierre Albert-Birot was a very singular man, a fringe poet who fascinated later generations with fanciful novels such as the 1934 Rémy Floche, employé ("employee").

In 1917, Albert-Birot directed the first performance of Les mamelles de Tirésias by Guillaume Apollinaire, a friend who had also been a contributor to SIC.

He went on to write numerous plays of his own, including Barbe-Bleue ("Bluebeard"); Les Femmes pliantes ("Flexible Women"); and L'homme coupé en morceaux ("The Dismembered Man").