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The Curved Planks: Poems / A Bilingual Edition
For decades readers and critics have acclaimed Yves Bonnefoy as France's greatest living poet. His most recent book of verse, The Curved Planks , crowns an oeuvre that has won him the highest international honors. More than any other single work, this sequence embodies the astonishing variety of Bonnefoy's art. A rich fabric of themes, styles, and genres, it alances aesthetic complexity with heartfelt directness.
This bilingual edition of The Curved Planks sets the French texts alongside English versions by the noted translator Hoyt Rogers, who has collaborated closely with Bonnefoy in crafting poems that re-create the freshness and vision of the originals. This volume also includes a preface by the renowned poet and critic Richard Howard and essays by the translator that situate The Curved Planks in the author's body of work. All assist in introducing the English-language reader to Bonnefoy's profound poetic gift.
Yves Bonnefoy has published seven major poetry collections, numerous studies of literature and art, and an extensive dictionary of mythology. His work has been translated into many languages, and he is a celebrated translator of Shakespeare and Yeats. He lives in Paris.
Hoyt Rogers translates poetry and other literary works from the French, German, and Spanish. He is also the author of a book of poems, Witnesses , and a volume of criticism, The Poetics of Inconstancy . He lives in the Dominican Republic.
For decades readers and critics have acclaimed Yves Bonnefoy as France's greatest living poet. His most recent book of verse, The Curved Planks , crowns an oeuvre that has won him the highest international honors. More than any other single work, this sequence embodies the variety of Bonnefoy's art. A fabric of themes, styles, and genres, it balances aesthetic complexity with heartfelt directness.
This bilingual edition of The Curved Planks sets the French texts alongside English versions by the noted translator Hoyt Rogers, who has collaborated closely with Bonnefoy in crafting poems that re-create the freshness and vision of the originals. This volume also includes a preface by the poet and critic Richard Howard and essays by the translator that situate The Curved Planks in the author's body of work.
"Yves Bonnefoy is one of the rare poets in the history of literature to have sustained the highest level of artistic excellence throughout an entire lifetime—more than half a century now, and still counting. These recent poems, superbly translated by Hoyt Rogers, attest to his enduring greatness."— Paul Auster
"Yves Bonnefoy is one of the rare poets in the history of literature to have sustained the highest level of artistic excellence throughout an entire lifetime—more than half a century now, and still counting. These recent poems, superbly translated by Hoyt Rogers, attest to his enduring greatness."— Paul Auster
"Yves Bonnefoy represents contemporary French poetry at its classic sober and yet soaring, full of invocation and 'Let this world endure . . . Let this world remain.' This volume—thanks to Hoyt Rogers, Richard Howard, and the input of Bonnefoy himself—is a splendid celebration of the depths of this particular craft, whose curved planks of its prow are shaped like a mind."— Mary Ann Caw, Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature, the Graduate School of the City University of New York
"I have been deeply impressed, reading Hoyt Rogers's translations of Yves Bonnefoy's Les planches courbes . They are much more than English versions of these strong and delicate originals—they are re-creations that became distinct poems in our language, a true and loving homage to their source."— Alastair Reid
" The Curved Planks is the crowning achievement of a major French poet who has much to say to our troubled Yves Bonnefoy continues to explore the possibilities of hope, to assay the significance of the here and now, to chronicle the dual 'presence' of emptiness and plenitude. Hoyt Rogers has composed fluent, engaging translations that reveal a profound respect for the original poems—and for the man who wrote them."— John Taylor, author of Paths to Contemporary French Literature
"The first poetic associations of Bonnefoy, an octogenarian French poet often mentioned in the same breath as Paul Valry, were with the French surrealists, but he has long since been a maverick of French verse, crafting stanzas as simple as they are resonant and rooted in everything from modernism to medieval song. This sequence, composed of short series of poems that take in every form from prose to rhyme, centers, as Richard Howard notes in a baroque preface, on renewal, taking the myth of Ceres as a point of 'she still/ Stops at night/ Under rustling trees,/ And knocks at closed doors.' Hoyt—who provides a long afterword, a translator's note and a bibliography — offers a translation that is solid and clear, and that allows for play among word and phrase...
This bilingual edition of The Curved Planks sets the French texts alongside English versions by the noted translator Hoyt Rogers, who has collaborated closely with Bonnefoy in crafting poems that re-create the freshness and vision of the originals. This volume also includes a preface by the renowned poet and critic Richard Howard and essays by the translator that situate The Curved Planks in the author's body of work. All assist in introducing the English-language reader to Bonnefoy's profound poetic gift.
Yves Bonnefoy has published seven major poetry collections, numerous studies of literature and art, and an extensive dictionary of mythology. His work has been translated into many languages, and he is a celebrated translator of Shakespeare and Yeats. He lives in Paris.
Hoyt Rogers translates poetry and other literary works from the French, German, and Spanish. He is also the author of a book of poems, Witnesses , and a volume of criticism, The Poetics of Inconstancy . He lives in the Dominican Republic.
For decades readers and critics have acclaimed Yves Bonnefoy as France's greatest living poet. His most recent book of verse, The Curved Planks , crowns an oeuvre that has won him the highest international honors. More than any other single work, this sequence embodies the variety of Bonnefoy's art. A fabric of themes, styles, and genres, it balances aesthetic complexity with heartfelt directness.
This bilingual edition of The Curved Planks sets the French texts alongside English versions by the noted translator Hoyt Rogers, who has collaborated closely with Bonnefoy in crafting poems that re-create the freshness and vision of the originals. This volume also includes a preface by the poet and critic Richard Howard and essays by the translator that situate The Curved Planks in the author's body of work.
"Yves Bonnefoy is one of the rare poets in the history of literature to have sustained the highest level of artistic excellence throughout an entire lifetime—more than half a century now, and still counting. These recent poems, superbly translated by Hoyt Rogers, attest to his enduring greatness."— Paul Auster
"Yves Bonnefoy is one of the rare poets in the history of literature to have sustained the highest level of artistic excellence throughout an entire lifetime—more than half a century now, and still counting. These recent poems, superbly translated by Hoyt Rogers, attest to his enduring greatness."— Paul Auster
"Yves Bonnefoy represents contemporary French poetry at its classic sober and yet soaring, full of invocation and 'Let this world endure . . . Let this world remain.' This volume—thanks to Hoyt Rogers, Richard Howard, and the input of Bonnefoy himself—is a splendid celebration of the depths of this particular craft, whose curved planks of its prow are shaped like a mind."— Mary Ann Caw, Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature, the Graduate School of the City University of New York
"I have been deeply impressed, reading Hoyt Rogers's translations of Yves Bonnefoy's Les planches courbes . They are much more than English versions of these strong and delicate originals—they are re-creations that became distinct poems in our language, a true and loving homage to their source."— Alastair Reid
" The Curved Planks is the crowning achievement of a major French poet who has much to say to our troubled Yves Bonnefoy continues to explore the possibilities of hope, to assay the significance of the here and now, to chronicle the dual 'presence' of emptiness and plenitude. Hoyt Rogers has composed fluent, engaging translations that reveal a profound respect for the original poems—and for the man who wrote them."— John Taylor, author of Paths to Contemporary French Literature
"The first poetic associations of Bonnefoy, an octogenarian French poet often mentioned in the same breath as Paul Valry, were with the French surrealists, but he has long since been a maverick of French verse, crafting stanzas as simple as they are resonant and rooted in everything from modernism to medieval song. This sequence, composed of short series of poems that take in every form from prose to rhyme, centers, as Richard Howard notes in a baroque preface, on renewal, taking the myth of Ceres as a point of 'she still/ Stops at night/ Under rustling trees,/ And knocks at closed doors.' Hoyt—who provides a long afterword, a translator's note and a bibliography — offers a translation that is solid and clear, and that allows for play among word and phrase...
256 pages, Hardcover
First published September 15, 2001
About the author
Yves Bonnefoy
299 books84 followersYves Bonnefoy (1923/6/24-2016/7/1) was a French poet and essayist. Bonnefoy was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, the son of a railroad worker and a teacher.
His works have been of great importance in post-war French literature, at the same time poetic and theoretical, examining the meaning of the spoken and written word. He also published a number of translations, most notably Shakespeare and published several works on art and art history, including Miró and Giacometti.
His works have been of great importance in post-war French literature, at the same time poetic and theoretical, examining the meaning of the spoken and written word. He also published a number of translations, most notably Shakespeare and published several works on art and art history, including Miró and Giacometti.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
October 8, 2022
But it also seems to me that only the voice
That hopes is real, even when unconscious
Of the laws that would belie it. Only the hand
That trembles is real, touching the promise
Of someone else's hand.
That hopes is real, even when unconscious
Of the laws that would belie it. Only the hand
That trembles is real, touching the promise
Of someone else's hand.
July 1, 2021
On the moss-stained
Rock the shadows
Move. Almost like nymphs
In their dance.
When a sliver of sun
Shines through, their hair
Glints as gold might do
In a somber crucible.
Life will end.
Life endures.
The same as a child, playing
With too many dreams.
June 11, 2022
A very good collection of poems and short poetic stories. Of the stories, my favorites were "The Curved Plank" about a small homeless boy and a giant ferryman and "Throwing Stones" about throwing stones down a ravine. Stones played a big part in the book and there were several poems about them. My favorite of those was titled simply "A Stone"
They live in the time when words were poor
In rhythms undone, meaning pulsed no more
Smoke billowed up and shrouded the flame
They feared that joy would not surprise them again
They slept and slept, by the world distressed
Memories passed through their sleep
Like boats in the fog, stoking their fires
Before they head upstream
They woke. But the grass had already turned black
Let wind be their water, and shadow their bread,
Unknowing and silence their ring
An armful of night all their fire on earth
They live in the time when words were poor
In rhythms undone, meaning pulsed no more
Smoke billowed up and shrouded the flame
They feared that joy would not surprise them again
They slept and slept, by the world distressed
Memories passed through their sleep
Like boats in the fog, stoking their fires
Before they head upstream
They woke. But the grass had already turned black
Let wind be their water, and shadow their bread,
Unknowing and silence their ring
An armful of night all their fire on earth
February 21, 2022
Un voyage fascinant en terre de poésie par l’un des plus grands critiques sur Charles Baudelaire. Son vers transcende la parole pour accéder au vrai. Mon poème préféré est « une voix » et le sublime vers « et puisse le ciel être notre façon d’être avec ombres et couleurs qui se déchirent... »
August 25, 2022
Une brève note de lecture en 5 étoiles et 7 mots-clés :
#OBJETS : Omniprésence de ce concret (beaucoup de pierres), ces objets repères (« planches courbes ») auxquels le poète se rattache et donne « une voix » ; « Tout cela, mon ami,/Vivre, qui noue/Hier, notre illusion,/À demain, nos ombres. […] Foudre qui dort encore/Les traits en paix,/Souriante comme avant/Qu'il y ait langage. » (p. 33-34).
#TRADUCTEUR : le poète traduit ici le langage poétique des objets tout comme il a admirablement bien et beaucoup traduit des livres (de l'anglais, de l'italien).
#ESCHATOLOGIE : présence de l'interprétation sur l'au-delà et sur Dieu, bien que Bonnefoy soit athée.
#CONCEPT : On dit que Bonnefoy s'est beaucoup intéressé au « concept », qu'il critique, pour s'attacher au « mot ». En effet, il arrive fréquemment que le sens de mots se dérobe.
#SURRÉALISME : On en ressent encore l'influence bien après la rupture avec ce mouvement.
#PASSAGE : La question de la relation aux parents (ou à Dieu), de la transmission, du comment on grandit.
#MYTHOLOGIE : de nombreux renvois, notamment à des personnages comme Ulysse, Charon, Orphée.
#OBJETS : Omniprésence de ce concret (beaucoup de pierres), ces objets repères (« planches courbes ») auxquels le poète se rattache et donne « une voix » ; « Tout cela, mon ami,/Vivre, qui noue/Hier, notre illusion,/À demain, nos ombres. […] Foudre qui dort encore/Les traits en paix,/Souriante comme avant/Qu'il y ait langage. » (p. 33-34).
#TRADUCTEUR : le poète traduit ici le langage poétique des objets tout comme il a admirablement bien et beaucoup traduit des livres (de l'anglais, de l'italien).
#ESCHATOLOGIE : présence de l'interprétation sur l'au-delà et sur Dieu, bien que Bonnefoy soit athée.
#CONCEPT : On dit que Bonnefoy s'est beaucoup intéressé au « concept », qu'il critique, pour s'attacher au « mot ». En effet, il arrive fréquemment que le sens de mots se dérobe.
#SURRÉALISME : On en ressent encore l'influence bien après la rupture avec ce mouvement.
#PASSAGE : La question de la relation aux parents (ou à Dieu), de la transmission, du comment on grandit.
#MYTHOLOGIE : de nombreux renvois, notamment à des personnages comme Ulysse, Charon, Orphée.
September 11, 2021
Un recueil de poésie contemporaine parfois en prose, parfois en ver.
Un avis tout à fait subjectif puisque nous parlons poésie. Ayant lu Les Planches courbes pour le bac de Littérature, j'en avais gardé un très mauvais souvenir. Je me demandais donc si plus de 10 ans après, mes goûts ou ma compréhension avaient pu évoluer. Malheureusement, il n'en est rien. Je suis extrêmement imperméable au style de Bonnefoy qui ne m'évoque que très peu de choses et dont je dois me fatiguer pour chercher à comprendre les poèmes. Tout au plus La maison natale sort-elle du lot. J'avoue ne pas comprendre comment l'on a pu jeter des lycéens dans une telle oeuvre. Une expérience de lecture que je ne compte pas réitérer une troisième fois!
Un avis tout à fait subjectif puisque nous parlons poésie. Ayant lu Les Planches courbes pour le bac de Littérature, j'en avais gardé un très mauvais souvenir. Je me demandais donc si plus de 10 ans après, mes goûts ou ma compréhension avaient pu évoluer. Malheureusement, il n'en est rien. Je suis extrêmement imperméable au style de Bonnefoy qui ne m'évoque que très peu de choses et dont je dois me fatiguer pour chercher à comprendre les poèmes. Tout au plus La maison natale sort-elle du lot. J'avoue ne pas comprendre comment l'on a pu jeter des lycéens dans une telle oeuvre. Une expérience de lecture que je ne compte pas réitérer une troisième fois!
October 20, 2019
J’ai beaucoup aimé les premiers poèmes dont j’ai apprécié les images, la musicalité, l’onirisme et une forme de pureté de l’élémentaire. Je n’ai pas été également touchée par tous les poèmes et recueils réunis mais peut-être était-ce dû à mon humeur, état d’esprit changeant entre mes périodes de lecture. J’ai eu la nette impression que je ne ressentais pas toujours cette poésie de la même manière, que je pouvais y être ouverte et me laisser toucher par elle à certains moments et y être plus imperméable à d’autres
February 8, 2024
"mais le plus cher mais non le moins cruel de nos souvenirs, la pluie d'été soudaine, brève"
sur l'herbe, sous une petite pluie, toi et moi et nos dos contre la terre. on n'a pas su comment vivre après.
sur l'herbe, sous une petite pluie, toi et moi et nos dos contre la terre. on n'a pas su comment vivre après.
June 24, 2020
One of my favorite books!! ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ plus 🥰
September 25, 2022
Ma pire lecture au lycée pour le Bac.
January 9, 2025
Brala sem prevod Nadje in Ivana Dobnika, ampak ga ni na Goodreadsu. Čudovit prevod, čudovite pesmi - od super pesnika in super prevajalcev niti nisem pričakovala manj.
April 9, 2026
3.5.
"J'aurai barré cent fois ces mots partout, en vers, en prose, Mais je ne puis faire qu'ils ne remontent dans ma parole."
lecture agréable, écriture douce.
"J'aurai barré cent fois ces mots partout, en vers, en prose, Mais je ne puis faire qu'ils ne remontent dans ma parole."
lecture agréable, écriture douce.
December 8, 2007
I've only read selections of Yves Bonnefoy before I read this book, and I picked it up in the hopes of getting a fuller sense of how I felt about his work.
What I didn't count on was Hoyt Rogers putting together such a terrible translation.
Some of what Hoyt Rogers does is typical bad translation: his word choices are overly cautions, on the whole, and he's so wed to the simplest semantic meanings that the poetry in English is limp and lifeless.
Some of what Hoyt Rogers does is his own brand of bad translation. As an example, let's consider this passage from "Summer Rain." The original begins:
And Rogers translates the passage as:
I have three problems with this translation, all of which are related to those first two lines:
1. The word "mais" is repeated in the first line of the original, giving the line a substantial portion of its music. Instead of choosing between "yet" or "but" ("mais" can mean either, depending on context), Rogers uses both options, destroying the music of a repeated word.
2. Rogers weakens the shift from "plus cher" (literally "most dear") to "mois cruel" (literally "least cruel") by ignoring the syntactic parallel--both use an "adjective-noun" construction. Instead, he chooses to render the first phrase as "dearest" and the second as "least cruel."
3. In French, when the first line is read by itself, it is a statment and a negation: "But the most dear but no". When the second line is added, the meaning of the first line shifts to being part of a larger statment, a statment that includes a hesitation before continuing: "But the most dear but not/ The least cruel".
By making these three poor choices, Rogers changes a stanza that speaks to uncertainty and to the production of meaning through language into a fairly direct, mildly interesting statement. In French, Bonnefoy sounds like Robert Creeley in his relationship to language. In Rogers' rendering, Bonnefoy is simple and unimaginative.
The "Translator's Note" sheds some light on Rogers' decisions. In the note, Rogers describes a meeting between him Bonnefoy while Bonnefoy was translating Yeats. Bonnnefoy feared that his translation of "Byzantium" "might have departed too drastically ffrom the semantic content of the text." Rogers that Bonnefoy's translation maintained Yeats' music while clarifying "its convoluted syntax."
Indeed, Rogers' primary concern seems to be conveying semantic content of the poems in the simplest statements possible. By doing so, Rogers changes Bonnefoy's struggle between language and meaning into a series of logical truth-statement about the natural world. A friend of mine described Rogers' translations as "a bull in a China shop." I can't think of a more accurate description.
What I didn't count on was Hoyt Rogers putting together such a terrible translation.
Some of what Hoyt Rogers does is typical bad translation: his word choices are overly cautions, on the whole, and he's so wed to the simplest semantic meanings that the poetry in English is limp and lifeless.
Some of what Hoyt Rogers does is his own brand of bad translation. As an example, let's consider this passage from "Summer Rain." The original begins:
Mais le plus cher mais non
Le moins cruel
De tous nos souvenirs, la pluie d'été
Soudaine, brève.
And Rogers translates the passage as:
Yet the dearest
Of all our memories,
But not the least cruel: summer rain
Sudden, brief.
I have three problems with this translation, all of which are related to those first two lines:
1. The word "mais" is repeated in the first line of the original, giving the line a substantial portion of its music. Instead of choosing between "yet" or "but" ("mais" can mean either, depending on context), Rogers uses both options, destroying the music of a repeated word.
2. Rogers weakens the shift from "plus cher" (literally "most dear") to "mois cruel" (literally "least cruel") by ignoring the syntactic parallel--both use an "adjective-noun" construction. Instead, he chooses to render the first phrase as "dearest" and the second as "least cruel."
3. In French, when the first line is read by itself, it is a statment and a negation: "But the most dear but no". When the second line is added, the meaning of the first line shifts to being part of a larger statment, a statment that includes a hesitation before continuing: "But the most dear but not/ The least cruel".
By making these three poor choices, Rogers changes a stanza that speaks to uncertainty and to the production of meaning through language into a fairly direct, mildly interesting statement. In French, Bonnefoy sounds like Robert Creeley in his relationship to language. In Rogers' rendering, Bonnefoy is simple and unimaginative.
The "Translator's Note" sheds some light on Rogers' decisions. In the note, Rogers describes a meeting between him Bonnefoy while Bonnefoy was translating Yeats. Bonnnefoy feared that his translation of "Byzantium" "might have departed too drastically ffrom the semantic content of the text." Rogers that Bonnefoy's translation maintained Yeats' music while clarifying "its convoluted syntax."
Indeed, Rogers' primary concern seems to be conveying semantic content of the poems in the simplest statements possible. By doing so, Rogers changes Bonnefoy's struggle between language and meaning into a series of logical truth-statement about the natural world. A friend of mine described Rogers' translations as "a bull in a China shop." I can't think of a more accurate description.
September 28, 2014
My first Bonnefoy, probably not the Bonnefoy I should have started with. I honestly came in expecting some subtle modernism - and, well, experienced plenty of subtleties (I am sure some of them have slipped by me), but the modernist part was rather thin. For a poet that comes after Surrealism, Bonnefoy comes across as remarkably backwards-stepping and it is only the remarkable atmosphere from some poems that redeem this mishmash of rather different poems. "La voix lointaine" is the cycle that gets closest to my expectations; on the other end of the spectrum, "L'encore aveugle" made me wonder at times why did I bother to read this (let aside the musicality, which is the thing Bonnefoy seems to excel in)... The last cycle is not so bad, but it makes me want to return to Ponge. (Why was such a feeble book released from the very beginning in the NRF Poésie Gallimard collection? Oh, because Bonnefoy is a "no-risk winner" choice by now... I guess the best things French poetry can offer nowadays are (as usual?) far from the "establishment"...)
March 5, 2012
This book is brilliant, as a collection, as a book of poetry, as a book.
To wit: it is a marvel to have the french and the english placed verso recto across the gutter
and with ample white space.
.. that the edition announces that it is bilingual invites us to compare across the break, less to correct than to learn something about translation, to listen across language
and the poems, they are a marvel .. Bonnefoy is a poet of sound, these pages commend us to read them again and to hear them as we read them, aloud again and again.
To wit: it is a marvel to have the french and the english placed verso recto across the gutter
and with ample white space.
.. that the edition announces that it is bilingual invites us to compare across the break, less to correct than to learn something about translation, to listen across language
and the poems, they are a marvel .. Bonnefoy is a poet of sound, these pages commend us to read them again and to hear them as we read them, aloud again and again.
May 27, 2013
"che questo mondo rimanga,che le parole non siano /un giorno questi ossami /grigi, che avranno beccato, gridando, litigando, /disperdendosi, /gli uccelli, nostra notte, /nella luce./che questo mondo rimanga /come cessa il tempo/quando si lava la piaga /del bimbo che piange.e quando si ritorna nella stanza scura si vede che dorme in pace, notte, ma luce"
August 2, 2013
I don't like poetry. And I generally don't like the books I have to read for class.
But I read this one some years ago now, and I absolutely loved it, because the poetry lay not so much in the meaning of the words as in the sounds themselves.
One of the greatest pieces of literature I have ever read.
But I read this one some years ago now, and I absolutely loved it, because the poetry lay not so much in the meaning of the words as in the sounds themselves.
One of the greatest pieces of literature I have ever read.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews