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From: Sunny Girls
Unknown Binding
Published January 1, 2017
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
February 8, 2018
Sandra Moussempès, From: Sunny girls; translated by Eléna Rivera (March)
“These poems originally appeared in French in the collection Sunny girls, published by Flammarion in 2015”
I enjoy translations for a multitude of reasons, but in particular because they either introduce me to work in a language I don’t know or because they introduce me to a voice I have never heard before, or both. In this case, I am new to both the poet and the translator.
I don’t recall ever having read a translation through above/ground press before. It is possible that it has published works in translation and I may have missed. Either way it is a wonderful thing to do for both writers and readers. I commend rob mclennan on doing so.
I appreciate that the English and original French text is included.
I was intrigued from the opening lines, minimal and simple in structure but unusual and often fanciful in nature. By the second poem, which contains the line, “Poetesses who bet on the banal don’t ride mopeds despite appearances,” I was charmed. In French the sound is gorgeous, a real tongue roller.
The work contains a longer prose piece entitled “Momentary Resurgence of Visual Sensations” which moves slowly through the actions of thought and speech. “I like voices she could say I like not synthesizing not telling not retracing instead of shutting up, I ask myself and my answer is a question that has become a remake of my supposed previous life, track the sound that delayed leaves my mouth track that which spills out in thought, do you think then that one can become a person that will come back that one can come back in thought in the though of those who question you?
I like the repetition and the minimal punctuation in this piece, the way it mimics the way we think, or at least the way I think, a kind of self-talk. There is something Lisa-Robertson-ish about the way the author turns philosophical musings on thought and speech into poetry, into a subject for poetry. The thread of desire.
The poem ends with “and nonchalantly the red sun penetrates the purely theoretical text.” I feel that about Moussempès’ poetry.
The final small poem “I had noticed an unadorned house” is three lines that end with the line “I hear a breath behind me”. We continue after this poem, after this work. I like poems that end without concluding.
I look forward to reading more of Moussempès’ writing and Rivera’s translations and poetry.
“These poems originally appeared in French in the collection Sunny girls, published by Flammarion in 2015”
I enjoy translations for a multitude of reasons, but in particular because they either introduce me to work in a language I don’t know or because they introduce me to a voice I have never heard before, or both. In this case, I am new to both the poet and the translator.
I don’t recall ever having read a translation through above/ground press before. It is possible that it has published works in translation and I may have missed. Either way it is a wonderful thing to do for both writers and readers. I commend rob mclennan on doing so.
I appreciate that the English and original French text is included.
I was intrigued from the opening lines, minimal and simple in structure but unusual and often fanciful in nature. By the second poem, which contains the line, “Poetesses who bet on the banal don’t ride mopeds despite appearances,” I was charmed. In French the sound is gorgeous, a real tongue roller.
The work contains a longer prose piece entitled “Momentary Resurgence of Visual Sensations” which moves slowly through the actions of thought and speech. “I like voices she could say I like not synthesizing not telling not retracing instead of shutting up, I ask myself and my answer is a question that has become a remake of my supposed previous life, track the sound that delayed leaves my mouth track that which spills out in thought, do you think then that one can become a person that will come back that one can come back in thought in the though of those who question you?
I like the repetition and the minimal punctuation in this piece, the way it mimics the way we think, or at least the way I think, a kind of self-talk. There is something Lisa-Robertson-ish about the way the author turns philosophical musings on thought and speech into poetry, into a subject for poetry. The thread of desire.
The poem ends with “and nonchalantly the red sun penetrates the purely theoretical text.” I feel that about Moussempès’ poetry.
The final small poem “I had noticed an unadorned house” is three lines that end with the line “I hear a breath behind me”. We continue after this poem, after this work. I like poems that end without concluding.
I look forward to reading more of Moussempès’ writing and Rivera’s translations and poetry.
May 4, 2017
Exquisite and potent, elevated through a fantastic translation.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews