Tagged: “French poetry”

Poem of the Week: “Dans l’étendue/In the distance” by Philippe Jaccottet

In the distance
nothing but shimmering peaks

Nothing but ardent glances
interweaving

Blackbirds and doves

Poem of the Week: “Tightening loosening” by Jacques Dupin

Tightening loosening
on the restored tracks

without entirely freeing herself as woman 
from the vague bestiary that besets her…

Poem of the Week: “Durée d’Octobre / In October” by Claire Malroux

October its brilliance
In its arms
        the condemned leaves
        the obsession
with dying beautifully

Poem of the Week: “A l’écoute: Receiver / All Clear” by Ciaran Carson

In the final week of National Translation Month, we’re featuring a unique kind of translation act. In From Elsewhere, Ciaran Carson translates poems by the French poet Jean Follain. However, the volume is different in that Carson pairs these translations with original poems inspired by them: “Translations of the translations,” as he explains in the preface….

Poem of the Week: “Poète / Poet” by Vénus Khoury-Ghata

We’ve been posting translations to celebrate National Translation Month, and today we’ve chosen a French poem by Vénus Khoury-Ghata from her collection, Au sud du silence. Khoury-Ghata is a translator herself, most notably from French to Arabic  for the magazine Europe, but this poem was translated into English by Michael Bishop for an anthology of French poetry…

Poem of the Week: “Morte la nuit / When night has died” by Claire Malroux

Today we’ve selected a poem by French poet and translator Claire Malroux, alongside the translation by Marilyn Hacker. As Hacker points out in the preface to this volume, these poems are “on the boundary” in many ways. “Perhaps one crucial boundary, sacrosanct and taboo, on which they stand,” she continues, “is that between languages, and their…