Seedtime: Notebooks, 1954-79

by Philippe Jaccottet, Tess Lewis (Translation)

The first volume of notes and reflections from one of Switzerland’s most prominent and prolific men of letters.

Seedtime —Jaccottet’s notebooks—is an especially good introduction to this leading francophone Swiss author, containing the poet’s observations of the natural world and his reflections on literature, art, music, and the human condition. In these explorations, he returns again and again to the fundamental, focusing his prodigious talents on describing the exact shade of light on a meadow, the sound of running water, the color of cherry and almond blossoms, or the cry of a bird in the stillness before dawn. In this translation by Tess Lewis, English readers will finally be able to join this poet as we follow in his footsteps of fifty years ago and find the still-viable seeds of his delicate and tenacious verse.

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, France

352 pages, Hardcover

First published March 28, 1977

About the author

Philippe Jaccottet was a Swiss Francophone poet and translator.

Reviews

[Edita · Rating 5 out of 5]

For a long time I kept away wounds
With the passing of birds
I was surrounded by air and feathers
At present my skin is still intact
But they have entered into me
Sometimes they bleed, especially at night
I still see the birds
But I bleed as they fly
When I merely hear them
Without seeing them, at the heart of day
I feel a little spared.
*
It seems impossible
to go on, therefore, and yet you do. Why?

Because poetry could be of some help in confronting the
unbearable. Confront is a big word.

[steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

here, the words themselves nearly touch the landscape.

[Alice Rovani · Rating 4 out of 5]

Itinéraire paysager qui trouve son extase dans la contemplation de lieux familiers, rendus à leur lumière la plus justement chromée (Le Mont Ventoux)