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Selected Poems of René Char
The Selected Poems of René Char is a comprehensive, bilingual overview reflecting the poet’s wide stylistic and philosophical range, from aphorism to dramatic lyricism. In making their selections, the editors have chosen the voices of seventeen poets and translators (Paul Auster, Samuel Beckett, Cid Corman, Eugene Jolas, W.S. Merwin, William Carlos Williams, and James Wright, to name a few), in homage to a writer long held in highest esteem by the literary avant-garde.
279 pages, Kindle Edition
First published June 1, 1992
28 people are currently reading
620 people want to read
About the author
René Char
147 books129 followersRené Char spent his childhood in Névons, the substantial family home completed at his birth, then studied as a boarder at the school of Avignon and subsequently, in 1925, a student at L'École de Commerce de Marseille, where he read Plutarch, François Villon, Racine, the German Romantics, Alfred de Vigny, Gérard de Nerval and Charles Baudelaire.
His first book, Cloches sur le cœur was published in 1928 as a compilation of poems written between 1922 and 1926. In late November 1929, Char moved to Paris, where he met Louis Aragon, André Breton, and René Crevel, and joined the surrealists. He remained active in the surrealist movement through the early 1930s but distanced himself gradually from the mid-1930s onward. Throughout his career, Char's work appeared in various editions, often with artwork by notable figures, including Kandinsky, Picasso, Braque, Miró, Matisse and Vieira da Silva.
Char was a friend and close associate of Albert Camus, Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot among writers, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Nicolas de Staël, Georges Braque and Victor Brauner among painters. He was to have been in the car involved in the accident that killed both Camus and Gallimard, but there was not enough room, and returned instead that day by train to Paris.
The composer Pierre Boulez wrote three settings of Char's poetry, Le Soleil des eaux, Le visage nuptial, and Le marteau sans maître. A late friendship developed also between Char and Martin Heidegger, who described Char's poetry as "a tour de force into the ineffable" and was repeatedly his guest at La Thor in the Vaucluse.
His first book, Cloches sur le cœur was published in 1928 as a compilation of poems written between 1922 and 1926. In late November 1929, Char moved to Paris, where he met Louis Aragon, André Breton, and René Crevel, and joined the surrealists. He remained active in the surrealist movement through the early 1930s but distanced himself gradually from the mid-1930s onward. Throughout his career, Char's work appeared in various editions, often with artwork by notable figures, including Kandinsky, Picasso, Braque, Miró, Matisse and Vieira da Silva.
Char was a friend and close associate of Albert Camus, Georges Bataille and Maurice Blanchot among writers, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Nicolas de Staël, Georges Braque and Victor Brauner among painters. He was to have been in the car involved in the accident that killed both Camus and Gallimard, but there was not enough room, and returned instead that day by train to Paris.
The composer Pierre Boulez wrote three settings of Char's poetry, Le Soleil des eaux, Le visage nuptial, and Le marteau sans maître. A late friendship developed also between Char and Martin Heidegger, who described Char's poetry as "a tour de force into the ineffable" and was repeatedly his guest at La Thor in the Vaucluse.
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Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews
June 13, 2025
When I was in my late teens, I was still constantly haunting my mom’s library while home from college.
It was the township library, close to my parents’ home - and I was immersed in the wonders of her latest acquisition: a vast treasure trove of new vinyl classical recordings.
I was in paradise.
I played my nepotistic sense of privilege to the hilt, often ignoring her staff’s overdue notices! I hope her staff has forgiven me for my dozy indolence.
You see, I could never change. For me, as for the French Symbolistes - the founders of postmodernist European literature - forced indolence for me has always proven fertile ground for the Spirit. Like Pessoa.
But Char was a man of action, and in old age I see in his poetry the other dark side of the literary moon. It is the world of the political, and as such is a necessary part of all of our lives.
And for most of my life, like Pink Floyd, I lived in a flat dark side - the unconscious side - of my mind.
But now, to paraphrase Eliot, I live the “serenity” of age, which brings to light so much that had been hidden in “the wreckage on the beach.”
“Sudden in a shaft of sunlight,” the huge complexity of life now comes in pieces and sudden fragments, like the countess motes of dust that drift in and out of cognition.
Like the work of Rene Char. And his musical interpreter, Pierre Boulez...
Pierre Boulez’ AMAZING musical homage to Rene Char was an all-time favourite in those many teen treasure hunts.
And his atonal version of Char’s La Sorgue is ELECTRIFYING!
It’s the brilliance of the greatest artists of this postwar culture of new beginnings. (You can still hear it, I think, under ‘Les Soleils des Eaux’ - Boulez’ title - on YouTube.)
What sensitive human soul is not stirred to the very depths of its being by the words of René Char?
He wanted to live his life and his art as a free man who knew the limitless possibilities for expression that literature afforded. His passion for freedom produced a deeply conflictual poetry.
As happens to any brave soul who wants to make the unconscious conscious!
He saw his country - and indeed the world - falling under the bitterly repressive constraints of postwar anti-communist rules.
For him, freedom of expression was mandatory - the freedom of our natural state...
LA SORGUE
Chanson pour Yvonne (English to Follow)
Rivière trop tot partie, d'une traite, sans compagnon,
Donne aux enfants de mon pays le visage de ta passion.
Rivière où l'éclair finit et où commence ma maison,
Qui roule aux marches d'oubli la rocaille de ma raison.
Rivière, en toi terre est frisson, soleil anxiété.
Que chaque pauvre dans sa nuit fasse son pain de ta moisson.
Rivière souvent punie, rivière à l'abandon...
Rivière au coeur jamais détruit dans ce monde fou de prison,
Garde-nous violent et ami des abeilles de l'horizon.
THE SORGUE
Song for Yvonne
River setting out without companion, too soon, at a bound,
Give the children of my country the face of your passion.
River where the lightning ends and my home begins,
That rolls the rubble of my reason down the frontiers of forgetfulness,
River, in you the earth quivers, the sun is uneasy,
Let every poor man harvest your bread in his night.
River often punished, often left alone...
River with an indestructible heart in this mad prison world,
Keep us violent and friend to the bees on the horizon.
***
Rene Char: poet, lover, environmentalist, mystic, and one of the most unassumingly and quietly seminal of French post-war writers!
This selection is stunning, and the translations are superb.
It was the township library, close to my parents’ home - and I was immersed in the wonders of her latest acquisition: a vast treasure trove of new vinyl classical recordings.
I was in paradise.
I played my nepotistic sense of privilege to the hilt, often ignoring her staff’s overdue notices! I hope her staff has forgiven me for my dozy indolence.
You see, I could never change. For me, as for the French Symbolistes - the founders of postmodernist European literature - forced indolence for me has always proven fertile ground for the Spirit. Like Pessoa.
But Char was a man of action, and in old age I see in his poetry the other dark side of the literary moon. It is the world of the political, and as such is a necessary part of all of our lives.
And for most of my life, like Pink Floyd, I lived in a flat dark side - the unconscious side - of my mind.
But now, to paraphrase Eliot, I live the “serenity” of age, which brings to light so much that had been hidden in “the wreckage on the beach.”
“Sudden in a shaft of sunlight,” the huge complexity of life now comes in pieces and sudden fragments, like the countess motes of dust that drift in and out of cognition.
Like the work of Rene Char. And his musical interpreter, Pierre Boulez...
Pierre Boulez’ AMAZING musical homage to Rene Char was an all-time favourite in those many teen treasure hunts.
And his atonal version of Char’s La Sorgue is ELECTRIFYING!
It’s the brilliance of the greatest artists of this postwar culture of new beginnings. (You can still hear it, I think, under ‘Les Soleils des Eaux’ - Boulez’ title - on YouTube.)
What sensitive human soul is not stirred to the very depths of its being by the words of René Char?
He wanted to live his life and his art as a free man who knew the limitless possibilities for expression that literature afforded. His passion for freedom produced a deeply conflictual poetry.
As happens to any brave soul who wants to make the unconscious conscious!
He saw his country - and indeed the world - falling under the bitterly repressive constraints of postwar anti-communist rules.
For him, freedom of expression was mandatory - the freedom of our natural state...
LA SORGUE
Chanson pour Yvonne (English to Follow)
Rivière trop tot partie, d'une traite, sans compagnon,
Donne aux enfants de mon pays le visage de ta passion.
Rivière où l'éclair finit et où commence ma maison,
Qui roule aux marches d'oubli la rocaille de ma raison.
Rivière, en toi terre est frisson, soleil anxiété.
Que chaque pauvre dans sa nuit fasse son pain de ta moisson.
Rivière souvent punie, rivière à l'abandon...
Rivière au coeur jamais détruit dans ce monde fou de prison,
Garde-nous violent et ami des abeilles de l'horizon.
THE SORGUE
Song for Yvonne
River setting out without companion, too soon, at a bound,
Give the children of my country the face of your passion.
River where the lightning ends and my home begins,
That rolls the rubble of my reason down the frontiers of forgetfulness,
River, in you the earth quivers, the sun is uneasy,
Let every poor man harvest your bread in his night.
River often punished, often left alone...
River with an indestructible heart in this mad prison world,
Keep us violent and friend to the bees on the horizon.
***
Rene Char: poet, lover, environmentalist, mystic, and one of the most unassumingly and quietly seminal of French post-war writers!
This selection is stunning, and the translations are superb.
February 8, 2017
There is only the one like me, the companion man or woman, who can wake me from my torpor, set off the poetry, hurl me against the limits of the old desert for me to triumph over it.
It occurred to me that I bought this book new 20 years ago. That reflects upon my priorities in my early 20s. Hey, I should spend money on a new book I won't read for decades. Such memory isn't necessarily wistful, just peculiar. Char creates a series of challenging images. Some are steeped in the privation of the Occupation, some appear bucolic. I am enjoying this stroll through the corridors of verse, there's much to absorb, some of which remains ill-defined even with scrutiny.
I had not take with me the thin line of my return. I had the approval of my mornings nd that of a trampled stream.
Given the contrary chords of language, I am alert to an altered disposition or perspective.
It occurred to me that I bought this book new 20 years ago. That reflects upon my priorities in my early 20s. Hey, I should spend money on a new book I won't read for decades. Such memory isn't necessarily wistful, just peculiar. Char creates a series of challenging images. Some are steeped in the privation of the Occupation, some appear bucolic. I am enjoying this stroll through the corridors of verse, there's much to absorb, some of which remains ill-defined even with scrutiny.
I had not take with me the thin line of my return. I had the approval of my mornings nd that of a trampled stream.
Given the contrary chords of language, I am alert to an altered disposition or perspective.
December 29, 2019
Summer was singing on its favorite rock when you appeared to
me, summer was singing apart as we who were silence, sympathy,
sorrowful freedom, were sea still more than the sea whose long
blue spade was playing at our feet.
Summer was singing and your heart swam far from it.
I embraced your courage, heard your confusion. Road along the
absolute of waves toward those high peaks of foam where virtues
sail, murderous to hands bearing our houses. We were not credulous.
We were surrounded.
The years passed by. The storms died down. The world went
its way. I suffered to think it was your heart which no longer perceived
me. I loved you. In my absence of visage and my emptiness
of joy. I loved you, changing in every way, faithful to you.
*
In the streets of the town goes my love. Small matter where she moves in divided time. She is no longer my love, anyone may speak with her. She remembers no longer: who exactly loved her?
She seeks her equal in glances, pledging. The space she traverses is my faithfulness. She traces a hope and lightly dismisses it. She is dominant without taking part.
I live in her depth, a joyous shipwreck. Without her knowing, my solitude is her treasure. In the great meridian where her soaring is inscribed, my freedom delves deep in her.
In the streets of the town goes my love. Small matter where she moves in divided time. She is no longer my love, anyone may speak with her. She remembers no longer: who exactly loved her, and lights her from afar, lest she should fall?
me, summer was singing apart as we who were silence, sympathy,
sorrowful freedom, were sea still more than the sea whose long
blue spade was playing at our feet.
Summer was singing and your heart swam far from it.
I embraced your courage, heard your confusion. Road along the
absolute of waves toward those high peaks of foam where virtues
sail, murderous to hands bearing our houses. We were not credulous.
We were surrounded.
The years passed by. The storms died down. The world went
its way. I suffered to think it was your heart which no longer perceived
me. I loved you. In my absence of visage and my emptiness
of joy. I loved you, changing in every way, faithful to you.
*
In the streets of the town goes my love. Small matter where she moves in divided time. She is no longer my love, anyone may speak with her. She remembers no longer: who exactly loved her?
She seeks her equal in glances, pledging. The space she traverses is my faithfulness. She traces a hope and lightly dismisses it. She is dominant without taking part.
I live in her depth, a joyous shipwreck. Without her knowing, my solitude is her treasure. In the great meridian where her soaring is inscribed, my freedom delves deep in her.
In the streets of the town goes my love. Small matter where she moves in divided time. She is no longer my love, anyone may speak with her. She remembers no longer: who exactly loved her, and lights her from afar, lest she should fall?
Want to read
July 29, 2018o kadar çok istiyorum ki baskısı yok :)
September 25, 2019
Poetic brilliance.
July 3, 2015
I considered starting this review with a euphemistic sentence like: "This is a challenging book, never underestimating its readers' intelligence."
But who am I hiding from here, anyway? Here is a more honest opening sentence: "I had no idea what these poems were saying or doing most of the time, but I enjoyed them anyway."
Some of the more accessible poems in this collection are: "Evadne," a fairly straightforward reminiscence about young love; "La Sorgue," a Neruda-esque ghazal about a river; "Le Martinet," an overtly symbolic lyric that likens the human heart to a bird; "Madeleine qui veillait," a haunting prose poem that depicts a ghostly visitation in realistic detail; and "Allegiance," a philosophic rationalization of the inherent value of unrequited love, jarring in its embrace of cognitive dissonance.
Char often adopts the stance of a visionary, and many of his poems resemble intersessionary prayers, voiced by a saint who speaks in riddles:
"Restore to them what is no more present in them....
For nothing is shipwrecked or delights in ashes;
And for the one who can see the earth's fruitful end,
Failure is of no moment, even if all is lost" (p. 39).
"O rainbow of this gem-cutting shore, bring the ship nearer to its longing. Let every supposed end be a new innocence..." (p. 49).
In one prose poem, titled "Argument," Char even argues explicitly that modern poetry has a responsibility to be visionary, rather than merely representational:
"Those of today want the poem to be the image of their lives... Born from the summons of becoming and from the anguish of retention, the poem rising from its well of mud and stars, will bear witness, almost silently, that it contained nothing which did not truly exist elsewhere, in this rebellious and solitary world of contradictions" (p. 39).
But who am I hiding from here, anyway? Here is a more honest opening sentence: "I had no idea what these poems were saying or doing most of the time, but I enjoyed them anyway."
Some of the more accessible poems in this collection are: "Evadne," a fairly straightforward reminiscence about young love; "La Sorgue," a Neruda-esque ghazal about a river; "Le Martinet," an overtly symbolic lyric that likens the human heart to a bird; "Madeleine qui veillait," a haunting prose poem that depicts a ghostly visitation in realistic detail; and "Allegiance," a philosophic rationalization of the inherent value of unrequited love, jarring in its embrace of cognitive dissonance.
Char often adopts the stance of a visionary, and many of his poems resemble intersessionary prayers, voiced by a saint who speaks in riddles:
"Restore to them what is no more present in them....
For nothing is shipwrecked or delights in ashes;
And for the one who can see the earth's fruitful end,
Failure is of no moment, even if all is lost" (p. 39).
"O rainbow of this gem-cutting shore, bring the ship nearer to its longing. Let every supposed end be a new innocence..." (p. 49).
In one prose poem, titled "Argument," Char even argues explicitly that modern poetry has a responsibility to be visionary, rather than merely representational:
"Those of today want the poem to be the image of their lives... Born from the summons of becoming and from the anguish of retention, the poem rising from its well of mud and stars, will bear witness, almost silently, that it contained nothing which did not truly exist elsewhere, in this rebellious and solitary world of contradictions" (p. 39).
January 20, 2008
ive said it somewhere else i dont really understand it but its probably better not to understand this degree of sadness
November 14, 2011
I liked a lot of this, but some of it seems beyond me.
August 9, 2022
Reality, noble, does not refuse herself to the one who comes to prize her, not to insult or take her prisoner. There lies the unique condition we are not always pure enough to supply.
I strangled my brother because he hated sleeping with the window open.
I strangled my brother because he hated sleeping with the window open.
July 30, 2007
It was good, and some translations are better than others (several different people translate these poems). But overall, I have a feeling he doesn't translate well. The French versions are alongside the translations, but I do not read French. He can be incredibly abstract. I don't think these translations are bad; Mary Ann Caws has a few lovely ones, as does James Wright and several others, but some felt like a near "miss." Still, it's definately worth buying and reading. Sometimes translations grow on me over time.
July 12, 2019
Um poeta sublime. Conhecedor de coisas profundas. Lê-lo é como escutar o mistério do mar e do sal dentro de um búzio. Descreve como ninguém o que a desesperança faz aos homens.
--
FASTOS
"O Verão cantava sobre a sua rocha preferida
quando tu me apareceste,
o Verão cantava afastado de nós
que éramos silêncio,
simpatia, liberdade triste,
mar
mais ainda do que o mar,
cuja enorme comporta azul
brincava aos nossos pés.
O Verão cantava
e o teu coração nadava longe dele.
Eu beijava a tua coragem,
entendia a tua perturbação.
Estrada através do absoluto das vagas
em direção a esses altos picos de escuma
onde navegam virtudes assassinas
para as mãos que seguram as nossas casas.
Não éramos crédulos.
Éramos rodeados.
Os anos passaram.
As tempestades morreram.
O mundo partiu.
Sofria
por sentir que era o teu coração que já não me conhecia.
Eu amava-te.
Na minha ausência de rosto e no meu vazio de felicidade.
Eu amava-te, mudando em tudo,
fiel a ti."
*
"Nas ruas da cidade caminha o meu amor. Pouco importa onde vai no tempo dividido. Já não é meu amor, todos podem falar-lhe. Ele já não se recorda. Quem de facto o amou?
Procura o seu igual no voto dos olhares. O espaço que percorre é a minha fidelidade. Ele desenha a esperança e ligeiro despede-a. Ele é preponderante sem tomar parte em nada.
Vivo no seu abismo como um feliz destroço. Sem que ele o saiba, a minha solidão é o seu tesouro. No grande meridiano onde inscreve o seu curso é a minha liberdade que o escava.
Nas ruas da cidade caminha o meu amor. Pouco importa onde vai no tempo dividido. Já não é o meu amor, todos podem falar-lhe. Ele já não se recorda. Quem de facto o amou e de longe o ilumina para que ele não caia?"
--
FASTOS
"O Verão cantava sobre a sua rocha preferida
quando tu me apareceste,
o Verão cantava afastado de nós
que éramos silêncio,
simpatia, liberdade triste,
mar
mais ainda do que o mar,
cuja enorme comporta azul
brincava aos nossos pés.
O Verão cantava
e o teu coração nadava longe dele.
Eu beijava a tua coragem,
entendia a tua perturbação.
Estrada através do absoluto das vagas
em direção a esses altos picos de escuma
onde navegam virtudes assassinas
para as mãos que seguram as nossas casas.
Não éramos crédulos.
Éramos rodeados.
Os anos passaram.
As tempestades morreram.
O mundo partiu.
Sofria
por sentir que era o teu coração que já não me conhecia.
Eu amava-te.
Na minha ausência de rosto e no meu vazio de felicidade.
Eu amava-te, mudando em tudo,
fiel a ti."
*
"Nas ruas da cidade caminha o meu amor. Pouco importa onde vai no tempo dividido. Já não é meu amor, todos podem falar-lhe. Ele já não se recorda. Quem de facto o amou?
Procura o seu igual no voto dos olhares. O espaço que percorre é a minha fidelidade. Ele desenha a esperança e ligeiro despede-a. Ele é preponderante sem tomar parte em nada.
Vivo no seu abismo como um feliz destroço. Sem que ele o saiba, a minha solidão é o seu tesouro. No grande meridiano onde inscreve o seu curso é a minha liberdade que o escava.
Nas ruas da cidade caminha o meu amor. Pouco importa onde vai no tempo dividido. Já não é o meu amor, todos podem falar-lhe. Ele já não se recorda. Quem de facto o amou e de longe o ilumina para que ele não caia?"
November 27, 2024
More “experimental poetry” – which means it’s entirely unintelligible. Beautiful words and phrases strung together seemingly at random. If the point is to confuse, confound, and alienate, then Char has succeeded. This is the kind of verse that pushes people away from poetry as a unifying and meaningful social force. It doesn’t help that I’ve just spent a couple months reading reams of modern Spanish verse, which is about communicating concrete emotions (the very definition of art, according to Tolstoy, even as flawed and limiting as his aesthetic theories may have been). Even when they pushed the boundaries of imagery (Lorca in particular), there was at least some semblance of thematic unity. The avant-garde doesn’t have to be dense and obscure. Apollinaire and Cocteau have shown that. But Char, like the worst of Lorca or Tzara, just pulls pretty words from a hat (literally, in the case of Tzara), without rhyme or reason, and calls it experimental. Fair enough. I call it unintelligible.
October 5, 2025
NÃO LI ESTE LIVRO ESPECÍFICO: li outro que não encontro aqui, também bilingue, da cotovia, traduzido pela YK Centeno.
porém, mexeu-me demasiado para não só registar algo similar, como também apelar à leitura de René Char.
quando o autor morreu, dizia-se que "havia falecido o último poeta". não deviam estar longe da verdade. os padrões repetem-se entre quem percebe do fazer da poesia, ou não. e neste caso, há um claro saber de como funciona o poema, como o abordar, de uma fórma ontológica, pré-criação.
René Char vê sempre o poema como uma máxima, um objecto encantado com o qual se debater, numa relação quase-sexual. é comum associar-se o romance e a sexualidade a uma magia. e é disso precisamente que fala. ele e o fazer do seu poema são a matéria do mesmo.
porém, mexeu-me demasiado para não só registar algo similar, como também apelar à leitura de René Char.
quando o autor morreu, dizia-se que "havia falecido o último poeta". não deviam estar longe da verdade. os padrões repetem-se entre quem percebe do fazer da poesia, ou não. e neste caso, há um claro saber de como funciona o poema, como o abordar, de uma fórma ontológica, pré-criação.
René Char vê sempre o poema como uma máxima, um objecto encantado com o qual se debater, numa relação quase-sexual. é comum associar-se o romance e a sexualidade a uma magia. e é disso precisamente que fala. ele e o fazer do seu poema são a matéria do mesmo.
October 22, 2018
This book will always be very special to me. The translations are superb, far superior to the versions you will find online. The poems contained here showcase Char's immeasurable talent as a visionary/surrealist poet. His verse mysteriously addresses the reader, offering consolation and hope. The poems are universal in their application, and one may always return to them. One of the finest collections of poetry I have ever laid eyes on.
October 13, 2022
The only two reasons it is not 5 stars: occasional excessive sentimentality and abstraction. That aside, Char is perhaps one of the greatest poets to have graced this Earth and, being a Surrealist, had given the most life to non-living things, manifesting lines that are characterised by extreme imagery and unexpected diction, lines that most poets today can only dream of coming up with. Praise must be given to renowned poets such as Beckett, Merwin and Wright, who translated various pieces in this collection, for having did well to retain in English the fabric of Char's ideas as much and as accurately as possible. As a poet who strives to push boundaries in expression, after reading this selection, it is safe to say I have been deeply influenced by his style and aesthetics. Undoubtedly, Char was an immense talent who was in a realm of his own.
Read
January 23, 2024Ô dédale de l’extrême amour!
(O labyrinth of utmost love!)
(O labyrinth of utmost love!)
Read
February 10, 2024does this kind of mastery over language even exist anymore!
October 25, 2016
The world, these days, is hostile to the Transparents.Experiencing failure to explicate feelings for Char’s poetry. Wishing for ability to read it in French, but satisfied for the moment with the translations, which (having no point of reference) seem adequate, even good or possibly great, based on the fascinating phrasings and word pairings as appearing in English. And in fact these translations are not the work of one person but many, including noted poet-writers such as Paul Auster, William Carlos Williams, W.S. Merwin, and even good ol’ Sam Beckett. The volume is split about 50/50 between lined and prose poetry, all of which deserves multiple readings to discern and separate the individual living layers, which peel back and twist away as if to resist interpretation.
Themes of separation (physical and emotional), shifting psychic states and during them what passes into and out of us, life’s inevitable cyclic renewal in nature, emotions inherent in seasonal change, all permeated by a sort of exultant darkness flowing from tacit acceptance of ‘the void’. Char presents in his poetry as uncompromising, as a resister, and in fact he joined the French Resistance during WWII, and later the movement against storage of atomic weapons in Provence.
There is a title of one poem, ‘Remanence’, which is a physics term referring to the magnetic induction remaining in a material after a magnetizing force has been removed from it. This is a good way to characterize Char’s poetry…a reader may feel uncertain of what is being described yet still feels the effects lingering inside for some time afterwards, pulling the reader back to the source, and with the ghostly magnetic remains, also pulling in like-minded others.
Char was close to Maurice Blanchot, even dedicating one of these poems to him, and one can see some common ground in the prose work of these two philosopher-writers.
Some excerpts:
To Friend-Tree of Counted Days
Brief harp of the larches
On mossy spur of stone crop
—Façade of the forest,
Against which mists are shattered—
Counterpoint of the void in which
I believe.
__________________________
[from Mumbling]
Go on, we endure together; and together, although separate, we bound over the tremor of supreme deception to shatter the ice of quick waters and recognize ourselves there.
June 10, 2015
LJUBAV
Biti
Prvodošli.
Biti
Prvodošli.
Displaying 1 - 19 of 19 reviews