Return To Calm: Poems

by Jacques Réda

Translated from the French by Aaron Prevots. RETURN TO CALM, published in French in 1989 and appearing here as a full bilingual edition, immerses the reader in Jacques Reda's lyrical observations of the everyday. Its seven distinct sections offer reflections on youth, on travel in open country, on seasons, on Paris and on remembrance itself. They provide a rhythmic initiation into the outer world's beauty, through the eyes of a writer deeply attuned to the passing of time and space.

210 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Jacques Réda was a French poet, jazz critic, and flâneur. He was awarded the Prix Valery Larbaud in 1983, and was chief editor of the Nouvelle Revue Française from 1987 to 1996.

Reviews

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

These faces that by turns will have burnt me,
What veils were they drawing, of what hidden
Figure were they the symbol, the caricature,
Or the truth ever changing, forgotten?
But I see them again, arisen from
These folds where ash and rock are side by side,
Leaving for fire only meager food,
And fear somewhat less darkness as it nears
And concern for truth falls asleep within me like a child
Tired from traveling.

[Michael Caylo-Baradi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got hooked on the poem "The Encounter", which starts with
Time came at a sun's pace under the trees...