Curious Conduct

by Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont

Curious are the workings of history and governments, the relations between the sexes, the behavior of animals, the life of objects, the labors of art, and the transformations of the imagination. In exploring these subjects, Jeanne Marie Beaumont’s poems in Curious Conduct pursue and develop their own mode of investigation, a way into their subjects whether it be by interrogation, time travel, anthropomorphism or other conductive strategies. Jeanne Marie Beaumont’s first book, Placebo Effects (W.W. Norton), was selected by William Matthews as a winner in the 1997 National Poetry Series. For seven years she was publisher and co-editor of the literary magazine American Letters & Commentary . Currently, Beaumont teaches creative writing at Rutgers University.

Genres: Poetry

84 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2004

About the author

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, born Vaimboult was a French teacher, journalist and writer. She is the author of many classic tales for children and youth.

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont, née Vaimboult était une pédagogue, journaliste et écrivain française. Elle est l'auteur de nombreux contes classiques pour les enfants et la jeunesse.

Reviews

[Glenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Curious Conduct is replete with poems fervently reacting to themselves, though never in any kind of self-absorbed way, but re-combining, and rediscovering hidden meanings, ever reaching outward to touch the reader in brave and compelling ways. There is sharp humor that sideswipes you, and reveals larger truths than expansive explanation would.

In the poem “My Doctrine” Jeanne Marie writes of “the rabbit hole/of inquiry,” and her poems invite--dare--the reader down into Alice-like worlds of words, which, though it may seem so given the daring and verve of the language, are never just looking at themselves. You can just luxuriate in the play of the words, play that often subverts cliché, but utilizes them, bending them, re-shaping them to the poet's own more daring ends.

Jeanne Marie Beaumont has wonderfully fresh ways of writing about commonplace occurrences, and commonly written-about things. Then, in a poem like the lovely “Bonnard,” she will step back and simply crush you with exquisite and deceptively simple beauty, and through that emotional experience, draw the reader back to her poems again and again, to experience, to feel…more.