We're moving on from Fred Wah, but staying in Canada, with the latest collection from another venerable poetic voice from our neighbor to the north: Nicole Brossard's White Piano.
Brossard is an exception amongst our reading list in that she's our only author who doesn't write in English — instead, the Quebecoise poet writes in French and this volume, along with much of her recently published English-language books, was translated by Robert Majzels and Erin Mouré. A long-established voice in French-Canadian literature (having published her first book in 1966), she's only more recently drawn the attention of English-speaking audiences with the publication of her first translated-volume, Baroque at Dawn, in 1997. She's won the Governor General's Award, a prestigious Canadian literary honor twice (in 1974 and 1984) and has been nominated an additional four times; Majzels and Mouré's translation of Notebook of Roses and Civilization was shortlisted for the Griffin International Poetry Prize in 2008.
Brossard is as well-known for her fiction as her poetry, and this tension between genres is evident in her work, as the back cover blurb acknowledges, citing the book's "play of resonance between pronouns and persons, freely percussive between prose and poetry, and narrating a constellation of questions." Another transmutation occurs between literature and music, with the titular object serving as a central concern of the book, and guiding a poetic approach that mimics musical theme and variation. We might also consider how Brossard's perspectives, both as a queer poet and a feminist, shape her authorial perspective. In a 2009 interview with Judith Fitzgerald in The Globe and Mail, Brossard addresses her characterization as both a Language poet and a lesbian poet:
"Well," replies Brossard, "I certainly cannot refuse the term, 'language poet,' because it speaks to a fascination with language and an awareness of the structures and the virtuality of language at the same time. It is about experimenting, questioning and 'making a path' (as the poet Charles Bernstein would say). The expression 'language poet' points to a strong attraction to language which, of course, every poet should have . . . I would like to think I provide a narrative trend without losing any of a poem's concentration.
"Labels are either negative or positive. They are both given by people with whom you do not share values and by people with whom you share an essential dimension of yourself in practice or history. Because they are about visibility, they can be exploited for the best or the worst. But one thing is sure: Every individual is always more complex than the label attributed to him or her even when the label is self-imposed. When I say I am a lesbian it means more that a sexual practice. It is a way of being with women in a dynamic that fulfills and gratifies me. Being a poet makes the lesbian in me exist twice, once for real and once in a symbolic space. I have often said that it is the poet in me that deals with emotion in a way that can be shared with others."
Here's our schedule for White Piano:
- Tues. September. 9th: "Quivering" and "White Piano" (7–45)
- Thurs. September 11th: "Paragraphs of Eternity" (47–74)
- Tues. September 16th: "Piano Prose" and "Streaming" (77–109)
- PennSound Nicole Brossard author page
- Brossard's page at the Electronic Poetry Center
- White Piano reviewed in Quill & Quire
- White Piano reviewed by HTMLGiant
- Brossard in conversation with Fitzgerald in The Globe and Mail
- Griffin Prize Commendation for Majzels and Mouré's translation of Brossard's Notebook of Roses and Civilization
- A review of Brossard's Selections at Jacket
No comments:
Post a Comment