On the Motion and Immobility of Douve

by yves-bonnefoy-timothy-mathews-galway-kinnell

English, French (translation)Original French

Genres: Poetry, France, 20th Century

160 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

Reviews

[Steven Godin]

It was a wind stronger than our memories,
Stupor of dresses and cry of rocks — and you passed
before these flames
Your head square-ruled, your hands split open and all
In search of death on the exultant drums of your
gestures.

It was a day of your breasts
And you reigned at last absent from my head.

[Anna Ryan-Punch]

A suggestion from Paul, our household French poetry expert, when I eloquently asked for "something French and modern and not with a shit translation."

This book was an unexpected treat - I wasn't expecting it to be so strange, violent and insecty. It reads as a kind of journey (I think, it's not always easy poetry): where Douve has died and her lover speaks. But later; Douve speaks.

The writing is rich and strange and creepy both in English:

"But let her be silent, the one still keeping watch
At the hearth, her face having fallen in the flames,
Who yet remains seated, being bodiless.

Who speaks for me, her lips being shut
Who gets up and calls me, being without flesh
Who goes away leaving her head half-sketched,

Who laughs still, in laughter dead long since."

The whole book reeks of wet forest earth, love and blood.

[Javier Galarza]

PALABRAS DE ALEJANDRA PiZARNIK SOBRE EL AUTOR

«Poesía fundada sobre lo irremediable, la muerte y el silencio. Leerla es encontrar la verdadera voz callada de las cosas, del mundo del afuera y del adentro, es descubrir que el silencio no es la interrupción de voz, sino una zona iluminada donde el lenguaje dice sin decir, envuelve a las cosas como a un guante, haciendo a su mudez, a su inmovilidad. Ni voz ni pausa entonces sino figuras silenciosas, imágenes dibujadas por una voz inaudible.» (A. Pizarnik).

«La poesía no debe describir simplemente la ausencia debe ejecutar un acto ——el único valedero— desprender la presencia, hacer de lo irremediable y el límite nuestra verdadera reencarnación. Creo que la poesía es capaz o casi capaz de revelarnos el ser. Pero esto es lo contrario de una poesía de la plenitud, que es solo una mentira, a causa del abismo en lo que existe» (Yves Bonnefoy)

[مهسا]

و من دیده‌ام تو را که فرومی‌ریختی و به وجد می‌آمدی از مرده بودنت
ای زیباتر، که مرگ در خنده‌ات می‌نشیند

[Cassie]

Luminous and strange poetry. I noticed Bonnefoy on my shelf just now and lit up. Includes both the original French poems and translations on the facing page by Galway Kinnell.

Translation must be so difficult. Whenever I am aware that I'm reading a translation I have the sense of peering into moving waters to make out the intent behind the words.

These poems are 'grammatically evasive' - by which I mean, evading the expected, the customary tropes.

Here is a sample (from p. 145 in this edition):



"What needs this heart which was only silence,
But words which are both sign and litany,

And like a sudden bit of fire at night,
Or the table, glimpsed in a poor man's house?"

[Simone Roberts]

The poem that makes most late 20th Century poetry possible at all.

[Charlie Mansfield]

With these narrative artefacts, fragmented and unfinished, Yves Bonnefoy begins to show us a world without conclusion. His act of defiance towards the narrative pressures inherent in both the French and English languages sets up a tension, even a violence in this book of poems. Ostensibly, the volume is about a female lover, Douve. Douve, though, is the French word for a moat, that uncrossable body which separates us from safety and from danger. With this undercurrent at work we read the poems as if they are about the divide between us and death as much as they are about the divide between us and the untouchable reality of text. This is dangerous writing, fulfilling Derrida's "fatal necessity" by making us substitute the textual sign for reality.

[Mauro Costanzo]

La traduccion es dificil, siempre queda algo distante del verdadero poema, pero hace justicia y se sigue percibiendo el sentimiento iniciatico, casi ritual, de Yves Bonnefoy.

"Dare el nombre de yermo al castillo que fuiste,
noche a esa voz, a tu figura ausencia,
y cuando caigas en la tierra esteril
dare el nombre de nada al rayo que te trajo.

Morir es un pais que tu amabas. Yo vengo,
mas vengo vengo eternamente por tus sendas sombrias.
Destruyo tu deseo, tu forma, tu memoria,
soy tu enemigo y no me apiadare.

Guerra te llamare y me tomare contigo
las libertades de la guerra y yo tendre
en mis manos tu rostro oscuro y penetrado
y ese pais que alumbra la tormenta en mi pecho"

[Gabriel S.F]

Profound poetry on the necessity of becoming without ceasing to be, and being without closing oneself to change.

I would highly recommend the essay “Les Tombeaux of Ravenne” in “L’improbable” as a supplementary read for the poem. In it, Bonnefoy develops, in conceptual form, many of the intuitions that Douve delicately explores, such as presence beyond representation, the revealing force of finitude and death, the tension between movement and permanence, and the need for thought and language to remain open to the reality they cannot fully contain.

[Waldo]

"მართლა მოკვდი თუ კიდევ თამაშობ
შენს სიფერმკრთალესა და სისხლს,
იქნებ შენ ისეთ თავდავიწყებულ ძილს მიეც თავი,
როგორიც ჩვენ მხოლოდ სიკვდილი შეგვიძლია?
მართლა მოკვდი თუ კიდევ თამაშობ,
რომ კარგავ ყოველ სარკეში
შენს საკუთარ ანარეკლს, შენს სითბოსა და შენს სისხლს
შენივე ჩაბნელებულ, უძრავ სახეში?"

[Ia Khimsh]

ისეთი შთაბეჭდილება დამრჩა რომ თარგმანი შეიძლება უკეთესი ყოფილიყო. ამელი ნოტომის რომელიღაც წიგნს წინ უძღვის ერთ-ერთი ლექსის ნაწყვეტი. ის თარგმანი გაცილებით მძლავრი რამე იყო.

[احمد ابو عراق]

المعنى الحقيقي للسوريالية
#مسرح
#حركات_أخير
#دوف_تتكلم
#بيت_النبات_الزجاجي
#مكان_حقيقي

"وبفضل الشجر حلمنا يتواصل"

[Robyn Bright]

I return to this often.....

[Uzay]

probably a 4 if i understood more of it, 3.5, quite good (did not really look at the translations)