P

O
E
T
S
F
O
R
T
H
E
M
I
L
L
E
N
N
I
U
M
Edited by Pierre Joris
and Jerome Rothenberg
Andr Breton: Selections
Edited and with an Introduction by Mark Polizzotti
Mara Sabina: Selections
Edited by Jerome Rothenberg. With Texts and Commentaries
by lvaro Estrada and others
Paul Celan: Selections
Edited and with an Introduction by Pierre Joris
Jos Lezama Lima: Selections
Edited and with an Introduction by Ernesto Livon-Grosman
Miyazawa Kenji: Selections
Edited and with an Introduction by Hiroaki Sato
Gertrude Stein: Selections
Edited and with an Introduction by Joan Retallack
Nicole Brossard: Selections
Selected by Nicole Brossard. With an Introduction by Jennifer Moxley
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of
the Joan Palevsky Literature in Translation Endowment Fund
of the University of California Press Foundation.
This page intentionally left blank
N
I
C
O
L
E
B
R
O
S
S
A
R
D
S E L E C T I O N S
N I C O L E B R O S S A R D
S E L E C T E D B Y N I C O L E B R O S S A R D
I N T R O D U C T I O N B Y J E N N I F E R M O X L E Y
U N I V E R S I T Y O F C A L I F O R N I A P R E S S
Berkeley Los Angeles London
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished university presses
in the United States, enriches lives around the world by advancing scholarship
in the humanities, social sciences, and natural sciences. Its activities are supported
by the UC Press Foundation and by philanthropic contributions fromindividuals
and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
2010 by The Regents of the University of California
Frontispiece: Painting by Nicole Brossard, February 1967. Courtesy of Nicole Brossard.
For credits, please see page 236.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Brossard, Nicole.
[Selections. English. 2010]
Nicole Brossard : selections / selected by Nicole Brossard ; introduction by Jennifer Moxley.
p. cm. (Poets for the millennium; 7)
Includes bibliographical references.
isbn 978-0-520-26107-5 (alk. paper)
isbn 978-0-520-26108-2 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Brossard, NicoleTranslations into English. I. Title.
pq3919.2.b75a2 2010
841'.914dc22 2009039103
Manufactured in the United States of America
19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on Natures Book, which contains 30%post-consumer waste and meets
the minimumrequirements of ansi/niso z39.48-1992 (r 1997) (Permanence of Paper).
C O N T E N T S
Photographs follow page 6
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Key to Translators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
P O E M S
from The Echo Moves Beautiful (1968). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
from Logical Suite (1970)
everything gels white. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
mutual attractions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
between the lines the liquid slides . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
afterward its so little . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
its only initial and doesnt stop being so . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
to act and tend. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
again and without cease . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
there is the palpable night shifts feverish. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
suspension of the act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Subordinating Words. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
from The White Centre (1970). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
from Daydream Mechanics (19741980)
Reverse/Drift . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
A Rod for a Handsome Price . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
from The Part for the Whole (1975) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
from Lovhers (19801986)
(4): Lovhers/write. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
July the Sea . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61
The Barbizon Hotel for Women . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 71
from Double Impression (1984)
The Marginal Way. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
from Aviva (1985, 2008). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 82
from To Every Gaze (1989)
Cities by the Touch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
If Yes Seismal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
from Obscure Languages (1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
from Vertigo of the Proscenium (1997) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
from Installations (19892000)
Passage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Eternity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Taboo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Color Separation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Margin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Tongue. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100
Shadow. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Installation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 101
Contemporary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Tympanum. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Generation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Mores . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
Downtown . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Sweep. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Encore . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Gesture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105
Rai . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Matter Harmonious Still Maneuvering (1990) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Ultrasounds (1992) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
from Museum of Bone and Water (19992003)
Museum of Bone and Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Typhoon Thrum . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
The Throat of Lee Miller . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143
from Shadow: Soft et Soif (2003) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150
from Notebook of Roses and Civilization (20032007)
while caresses draw us close . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
the color of tears at the bottom. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157
whatever the month or wound. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
to the dawn add i am . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
the tongue rarely . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158
in a time blue and easy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Precautions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160
Suggestions Heavy-Hearted . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162
Smooth Horizon of the Verb Love. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164
Rustling and Punctuation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166
Every Ardor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 168
Its Lively. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
Soft Link 3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171
from Ardor (2008)
all thirsts are hollows of light . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
one calls noise of beauty . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 173
Nape 9. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Nape 10 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
Nape 12 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 174
from After the Words (2007) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 176
D O C U M E N T S
Poetic Politics (1990). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 179
[Untitled] Ima woman of the present (1999) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 193
Process of a Yes Its Energy in Progress (1993) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 197
Why Do You Write in French? (2000). . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 206
Interview with Nicole Brossard (1993)
lynne huffer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
Catalog of Works . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 221
Credits . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 236
I N T R O D U C T I O N
I dont believe that one becomes a writer to reinforce common values
or common perspectives on reality.
Nicole Brossard
Pleasure. This is the word that rst comes to mind at the mention of
Nicole Brossards poetry. There are other words, of course, words with
historical and political resonanceQubcoise, avant-garde, feminist,
lesbianwords which cannot be uttered casually, words which cause
some to stop listening and others to lean in and listen more closely.
Brossard puts such words at risk, for under her pen they magically
change. Heavy words become light yet still maintain their gravitas,
their restrictive weight (labels as some dismissively call them), be-
coming expansive, utopian, inspiring. Specic historical moments turn
into universals, personal desire into the condition we all share of be-
ing incorporatedin our bodies and in the body of language. Like a
mystics vision, turning the arduous climb to enlightenment into a ash
of brightest intensity, Brossards pen lifts these heavy words into an
ether of lightest thought. The result is pleasure, the pleasure of think-
ing, of reading, of having a body, of being in love, of being alive. The
pleasure is ours, but it is also hers: For my part, I have always made
writing a place of pleasure, of quest, a space of dangerous intensity, a
space for turbulence having its own dynamic.
1
Of course, ever since
1
Sappho declared what one loves the most beautiful thing on the
black earth, such themes have been central to poetry. They belong to
Beautys realm and as such take part in the aesthetic. Aesthetic is a
troubled word, a word which, at least since modernism, has been used
as a code for apolitical and disengaged. Writing that has the ex-
plicit goal of challenging the readers ideas, or inciting social change,
or shocking us out of our complacency, cares little for the aesthetic. Or
so we are told. After all, too much Beauty might lull us to sleep . . . and
yet, just in time, here comes Brossard to wake us up. She does so gen-
tly, shaking us out of our stupor. Her poetry effortlessly reunites the
aesthetic and the political, updating the meaning of both as it does so.
When we read her writing we experience a beauty both traditional
(sounds and slippages) and entirely new(shifts in syntax, breakages of
meaning). When we read her poetry we are reminded that, when it
comes to something as personal as pleasure, aesthetic pleasure included,
le priv est politique (the personal is political).
One would think such a feat would garner great attention, and in-
deed, Brossards literary accomplishments have been well recognized
in her native Qubec. Since her rst collection of poetry, Aube la sai-
son, publishedin1965 at the age of twenty-one, Brossardhas not rested.
She has produced over thirty volumes of poetry, a dozen novels, sev-
eral plays, numerous essays, talks, and interviews. She has edited three
anthologies, three literary journals, andcodirecteda lm. Thoughonly
a fraction of her output has been translated into English (or was orig-
inally written in English, as is the case with some of her essays), know-
ing where to begin when encountering her oeuvre can nevertheless be
daunting, for the rst-time reader certainly, but even for those who for
many years have had a passing familiarity with her writing, reading
an excerpt here and there, always interested, always hoping for more,
though never sure where to nd it, or where Brossards work ts in
2 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
the scattered and sophisticated story of contemporary poetry. In addi-
tion to the language barrier, there is also that stubborn problemof try-
ing to see across resistant borders into the literary culture and concerns
of another place. We long for a cosmopolitan conversation but often
have no idea where to nd it or whom to trust as interlocutor. And
sometimes we become so engrossed in playing our own particular
geopolitical part in the global theatre that we fail to hear or see the ac-
tors in the theatre right next door, though we may be, in many ways,
putting on the very same play.
This present collection of Brossards writings is a welcome rst step
to resolving these cosmopolitan conundrums. At last we in the anglo-
phone world have a convenient and elegant selection of Brossards po-
etry, chosen by the author herself. This volume represents forty years
of daring. Forty years of pleasurable caresses along the body of lan-
guage, a body both responsive and elusive, a body next to which we
fall asleep only to dream the beautiful dreams of polysemous mean-
ing. The poems included here range from Brossards 1968 book, The
Echo Moves Beautiful (Lcho bouge beau), a book which she has often
marked as the place where her adventure of writing really started,
2
to her 2008 book Ardor (Ardeur). In between are selections frommore
than a dozen other books of her poetry, the genre in which, though her
poems have received less critical attention than her novels,
3
Brossard
feels most contented: It is in poetry that I feel myself most happy. I
nd a space there, a sense of well-being in which my relation to the
world is absolutely happy, living.
4
For a writer whose language use is
synonymous with spontaneity and playfulnessor to use Brossards
term, the ludic (ludique)this makes perfect sense. Poetry, after all,
not only frees us fromthe constraints of character andnarrative, it also,
through its privileging of sound and rhythm, suits writers concerned
with exploring the ways that the surface pleasures and semantic slip-
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 3
pages of language enhance and expand our understanding of the com-
plex material and immaterial worlds both. If ever there was a writer
invested in such a quest, it is Nicole Brossard.
Brossarddevelopedher constellationof concerns as a young woman
coming of age in the heady atmosphere of 1960s Qubec, a time that
has come to be knownas the Quiet Revolution(La rvolution tranquille).
It was a time of great change in Qubec politics, religion, and culture.
During this tumultuous decade the Roman Catholic Church, which
had historically played the role of elite translator between the French-
speaking Qubec people and the English-speaking Canadian political
structure, lost a good deal of its power. Qubec became secularized.
This change from an ultra-Catholic Qubec,
5
into which Brossard
was born and where she received her early schooling, to a Qubec in
which she could assert that the Catholic Church had left a sour taste
because of its control on education and sexual life (marriage, contra-
ception, abortion, homosexuality)
6
was profound. The 1960s were also
the heyday of the Qubec sovereignty movement, which focused a de-
sire for the political independence of the province of Qubec fromthe
Canadian Confederation, as well as the question of what constitutes
Qubec identity, on the issue of language. Language was all. This is
nowhere more clearly seen than in the fact that a people who began
the decade as French-Canadians ended it as Qubcois. It is worth
saying again: language was all. And if language is your battleground,
then literature can never be neutral, for it will be called upon to pro-
vide both cover and weapons for the ght.
7
Analogous to race in the
civil rights movement in the United States, the French language, for
the young Qubec poet, was marked both with a history of political
oppression, and as a source of cultural pride. In Poetic Politics Bros-
sard makes her feelings about the historical suppression of her mother
tongue clear: I resent[ed] profoundly how as French-Canadians we
4 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
were despised and discriminated against by Anglo-Canadian politics.
I have always made the language issue a personal thing.
8
Previous to this crucial period, Qubec writers had been expected to
promote a very restricted denition of Qubec identity based on reli-
gious faith, the land, and stiingly codied gender roles. This call to
bolster the stability of the central ideological triumvirate, rooted in the
nineteenth century, was promoted as necessary to ensure the survival
of Qubec culture. Survival (survivance) was the watchword. Because
the survival of oppressedminorities muchdepends onnumbers, women
had a very particular role to play in this cultural project. They could
ensure survival by having lots of babies, a Church-sanctioned ideo-
logical campaign that came to be known as the revenge of the cradle
(la revanche du berceau). If a woman did choose to take up the pen, she
could only nd literary success and support fromthe establishment by
writing heroines that did not overtly challenge Church, land, or fam-
ily. As far as covert challenges, well, as the reassessment of the previ-
ously dismissed literary output by nineteenth-century women in the
anglophone world has shown, such subversions were going on all the
time. Nevertheless, previous to the 1960s, the Qubec literary scene was
not one in which writers interested in moving beyond the national
project to international themes andconcerns foundmuchsupport. This
was doubly true for women writers, whose particular concerns were
seen as trivial when placed alongside the larger revolutionary effort to
create a unied Qubcois we, a we that, while supposedly stand-
ing in for the universal subject, was actually gendered male. A quote
fromnovelist Jacques Godbout, himself anactive participant inthe de-
bates of the time, illustrates this discrepancy: All Qubec writers sleep
with the same girl whose name is Nation. But this girl has no house.
Thats why we say of he who wants to become a writer that he is a pi-
oneer; like the pioneers, he will have to, simultaneously, buildthe house
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 5
and make love to the girl.
9
Serendipitously, however, the tacit exclu-
sion of women in the shaping of a new Qubec identity left women
writers free to follow their own paths, paths which, as it would turn
out, were intellectually challenging and formally inventive and would
do much to help turn Qubec literature into an international litera-
ture. As scholar Mary Jean Green puts it, This marginalization of the
concerns of many women writers by the 1960s literary establishment
undoubtedly contributed to the turn away fromnational themes and
the explicit rejection of the identity narrative by the strongly experi-
mental feminist writers of the 1970s.
10
Among whomwas the central
gure of Nicole Brossard.
Nicole Brossard was born in the city of Montral in 1943. Until she was
seven she lived with her parents, and eventually her younger sister, on
Rue Garnier in the northeast of the city. Her family then moved to an
anglophone district called Snowdon in Montrals west end, a move
Brossards class-conscious mother sawas upward.This relocationac-
quainted the young Brossard with the differences between the French
and English cultures of the divided city. On the one hand, there were
the commonworkers who spoke supposedly badFrench, calledjoual,
and lived beyond the dividing street of St. Lawrence, where, Brossards
mother assured her, everything was murder, orgies, and women of ill-
repute.
11
On the other hand, there were the Brossards proper, pro-
fessional, and mostly anglophone neighbors (lawyers, judges, and the
like), includingher ownextendedfamily andher father, who spoke En-
glish at his respectable accounting job. Unfortunately, for Brossards
mother anyway, warnings about the wrong side of town and insinua-
tions that each of her daughters should eventually seek an English-
speaking husband had quite the opposite effect fromthat intended on
the young would-be poet. As the image of a city split into two cultures
6 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
Top: Nicole Brossard, 19811982. Photo by
Denyse Coutu.
Nicole Brossard and her daughter, Julie
Capucine, Ogunquit, Maine, 1987. Photo by
Germaine Beaulieu.
Writing. Photo by Nicole Brossard.
Top: Notebook: Giorgione 14761510.
Notebook: 13h.50.
Top: Ear Inn, New York, 1988. From left to right:
Charles Bernstein, unidentified man, Jackson Mac
Low, James Sherry, and Nicole Brossard.
Griffin Poetry Prize Award ceremony, June 2008.
Foreground from left: John Ashbery, Nicole Brossard,
Michael Ondaatje.
slowly took shape inside her, Brossard came to identify with the mar-
gins, putting herself imaginatively in the role of the outcast and rebel.
12
The rebel was, until young adulthood, educated by nuns (on one of
whomshe hadher rst crush) andthenuntil age eighteenat Marguerite-
Bourgeois College. In1963 she enteredthe University of Montreal, grad-
uating with a Licence s Lettres (Bachelors of Arts and Letters) in 1968,
the same year she would publish the rst volume excerpted in this col-
lection, The Echo Moves Beautiful. It was during this rst stint at the
university (inthe 1970s she wouldcomplete two advanceddegrees) that
Brossards literary life took root. She wrote and published her rst po-
ems, and she met the people with whomshe would, through a shared
passion for politics, literature, and the connection between the two, be-
gin to shape the collective identity necessary to forming that sense of
being part of something larger than oneself called a generation. As
Brossard remembers it, We were working, so to speak, on four fronts:
challenging English-Canadian political and economic domination, de-
nouncing the exploitation of our natural resources byAmerican multi-
nationals, struggling against the power of the clergy, resisting the om-
nipresent inuence of French literature.
13
To a generation who felt
like strangers to [its] own literature, the question of what it meant to
be a Qubcois writer was primary. It was a question intimately tied up
with the split city of Brossards childhood, a question of margins and
centers. Despite the vowto resist French literature, changes going on
across the pondin literature (the nouveau roman) and linguistic the-
ory (post-structuralism)wouldalsocome intoplay, andindeed, would
have an important inuence on the direction Brossards writing would
eventually take.
It was during this formative period that Brossard, along with fel-
low student writers Marcel Saint-Pierre, Roger Soublire, and Jan
Stafford, founded in 1965 the seminal literary magazine La Barre du
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 7
jour. The name, which can be translated literally as bar of day, comes
from the expression la barre du jour, a gurative way to say day-
break. In keeping with this message of a dawn of a new day in
Qubcois literature, La Barre distanced itself from the nationalist
agenda of Church, land, and family, was avant-garde in its literary
tastes, and openly interested in the then new ideas of post-structural-
ist theory. Because of this convergence of interests, we can read the
seemingly innocuous barre (bar) of the magazines title in a far more
signicant way. In The Agency of the Letter in the Unconscious or
Reason since Freud, French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan famously
takes Ferdinand de Saussures bar
14
between the signier (the look/
sound of a word) and the signied (the meaning of a word) to be lit-
eral, illustrating the divide between the separate functions of the lin-
guistic sign with a bar like the one that separates numbers in a math-
ematical equation, as follows:
S
s
In Lacans equation, the capital S of the signier takes precedence
over the small italicizeds of the signied, visually dominatingit. Thus
through a simple illustration an entirely newpoetics can emerge, a po-
etics in which the meanings of words are barred from their graphic
representation, leaving words free to move about and signify at
will.
15
The instability of language that terried Stphane Mallarm a
hundred years earlier (and which I discuss below) returns in a revolu-
tionary era as an unmixed good, a radical seed through which the en-
tire structure of society might be made to grow in a different direc-
tion. Given that Lacans crits were published in France the year after
Brossard and her coeditors founded their magazine La Barre du jour,
the young Qubcois editors couldnot have knownhowtheir prophetic
title would dovetail with Lacans formulation, and yet, steeped in the
8 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
pages of Tel Quel as they were (an ambiance which primed themto fall
in love with the linguistic liminal), this is clearly a case of what Oulip-
ians call plagiarismby anticipation.
16
Literary magazines started in college and in the ush of new en-
thusiasms usually fold after a few issues, their editors having come to
an impasse or the funding run out. In stark departure from this pat-
tern, Le Barre du jour ran for fty-seven issues, until 1977, after which
it was retooled and rethought to become La Nouvelle Barre du jour,
which continued publication until 1990, though Brossard, who had in
the meanwhile cofounded the feminist paper Les Ttes de pioche (The
Hard Heads), left in 1979. La Barre du jour was a literary calling card
that providedthe opportunity for Brossardandher contemporaries not
only to articulate their ownviews, but also to opena dialogue withwrit-
ers and artists of earlier generations, such as Alain Grandbois, Alfred
Pellan, and Claude Gauvreau, this last an esteemed signatory of the
1948 manifesto Le Refus global (total refusal)a document so pow-
erful in Qubec it is thought to have provoked the Quiet Revolution.
In her brief text, Autobiography (published in a 1992 collection),
Brossard imagines her ve-year-old self having a fanciful connection
to this historically signicant manifesto: my ray may have connected
withthe one emittedby a group of artists who, gatheredaroundpainter
Paul-Emile Borduas, published the manifesto entitled Refus global:
The bounds of our dreams were changed forever [. . . ] Make way for
magic! Make way for objective mysteries! Make way for love! Make
way for internal drives! said the ray.
17
Brossards ecstatic excerpt fromthe Refus global manifesto is telling.
Dreams, magic, mysteries, love, and drivesall things that were to
become increasingly important to her writing in the 1970s. It was dur-
ing the early part of this decade that she was fundamentally changed
by two events. She gave birth to her only child, a daughter, and she fell
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 9
in love with another woman. At this time Brossard also decided, after
a few years of working as a teacher, to devote herself full time to her
writing. The result of these experiences was to move feminismandles-
bianism to the center of Brossards poetics: Motherhood shaped my
solidarity with women and gave me a feminist consciousness as les-
bianism opened new mental space to explore.
18
During this decade
Brossard, with Luce Guilbeault, made a lm entitled Some American
Feminists: New York 1976, a project that put Brossard in contact with
leading feminists, including Kate Millett, Betty Friedan, and Simone
de Beauvoir. Of course, the 1970s were an amazing time for feminism,
and women writers everywhere were energized by the womens lib-
eration movement although responding to it in different ways. In the
United States an identity-based feminist poetry of experience, exem-
plied by the work of Adrienne Rich, became a dominant mode. Al-
though she was an admirer of Richs work,
19
Brossards avant-garde
allegiances, Qubcois perspective on the language question, theoret-
ical interests, and indeed, her French, allowed feminismto shape her
writing inanentirely different way. Her poetry became intimate, erotic,
sensual, playful, woman centered, questioning, and utopian, but she
never used traditionally narrated autobiographical experience. I have
always kept my distance fromautobiographical writing, Brossardtells
us, as if this rawmatter of life called lived experience has no relevance
until it has been transformed by creative energy, by the questions and
the imaginary landscape it generates.
20
Instead, inuenced by French
writers such as Roland Barthes, Hlne Cixous, and Monique Wittig,
Brossards trajectory moves not from female experience and body to
text, but inthe opposite direction. Her wordplay aroundthe termcor-
tex, whose sound combines the French words corps/texte (body/text),
explains it best: The termcortex expands to reveal corps and text,
the implicationof the body inthe text, andthe perceptionthat the body
1 0 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
is written by language.
21
If language writes the body, and that body
is a lesbian bodywhich for Brossard means a utopian body rooted in
eroticismthen it follows that language itself must be an erotic body,
a body devoted to pleasure without boundaries, always changing, end-
lessly alluring. . .
Does the text have human form, is it a gure, an anagram of the
body? Barthes asked in 1973 in The Pleasure of the Text (Le plaisir du
texte). Yes, he answers, but of our erotic body.
22
In Barthes we have
more than one body, and our body of bliss is wholly distinct from
the body of anatomists and physiologists. Brossard makes her own
list: Between Platos body-tomb, the theatrical-body, the body of
modernist writing, the feminine body of difference, the lesbian body
of utopia, the queer body of performance, the body invents its surviv-
ing, its narrative, which is its displacement in the middle of knowl-
edge and beliefs. We need to place the body at the right place in the
dreaming part inhabiting us.
23
And so we are back to the dreams, and
the Refus global manifesto. Following another Barthesianclue through
the labyrinth of Wittig brings us even closer to Brossard. The text . . .
grants a glimpse of the scandalous truth about bliss: that it may well
be . . . neuter.
24
This Barthesian neuter reappears in Wittig in the
guise of the lesbian, a concept that she sees as beyond the categories
of sex (woman and man), because the designated subject (lesbian) is
not a woman, either economically, or politically, or ideologically. For
what makes a woman is a specic social relation to a man. . . .
25
The
pleasure of the text is neuter, as is the lesbian under patriarchy, and
neither can be located in the traditional narrative. In order to have our
pleasure, therefore, everything, even language itself, must be rein-
vented: Somehow feminist consciousness and lesbian experience in-
cite us to process reality andctioninsucha way that we have no choice
but to reinvent language.
26
In this statement we hear the feminist up-
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 1 1
dating of Arthur Rimbauds Lettre du voyant: A language must be
found;Moreover, every word being an idea, the time of a universal
language will come!
27
The need to process reality differently surely
demands a change in rhythm, a rethinking of the patterns our articu-
lations take, and, as a result, a newkind of poetry. Barthes suggests our
bliss lives where we least expect it: it is intermittence . . . whichis erotic:
the intermittence of skin ashing between two articles of clothing . . .
between two edges . . . or, as in Wittigs The Lesbian Body, the edge
between two indeterminate, unending female bodies.
28
This is a key
concept for the reading of Brossards work, for intermittencewith
all its erotic implicationsis how meaning is made in her poetry.
At the beginning of this introduction I claimthat Brossards poetry
reunites the aesthetic and the political, by which I mean that her writ-
ing seems to eschewthe anti-aesthetic programs of the historical avant-
garde, as well as the socialist-realist programs of politically engaged
writing on the left. It is her feminism and her lesbianism that allow
her to do this. She is sympathetic with what Wittig diagnosed as the
Marxist denial of the need for oppressed peoples to constitut[e] them-
selves historically as subjects. As Brossard writes in Poetic Politics,
[a]nyone who encounters insult and hatred because of her or his dif-
ferences froma powerful group is bound, sooner or later, to echo a we
through the use of I and to draw a line between us and them, we and
they.
29
If it is through the I that the we is echoed, those lacking
an Ia subjectwill be able to speak for neither themselves nor
others. We can hear Brossard funnel this we through her I, uidly
moving between the two, in a prose poem from Obscure Languages:
I suppose that the collective recourse to suffering is justied. But we
will remember that it is while observing the stars that one part of our
madness was drained into music, the other, to my great astonishment,
1 2 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
into martial arts. I suppose that suffering, if it were to disappear, would
require more precision in our proof of love, more trembling in our vocal
cords when I name.
Here, in what looks like a relatively straightforward set of statements,
Brossard still manages to create that alluring intermittence Barthes
wrote of. We go fromsuffering and madness to a possible solution:
I suppose that suffering, if it were to disappear, would require more
precision in our proof of love, more trembling in our vocal cords when
I name. We move from precision to proof of love to trembling vocal
cords and, nally, to the act of naming. This movement fromthe im-
material abstract space of love to the material, concrete space of the body
is pure Brossard. The vocal cords tremble, the tongue moves, naming
begins. The eroticism is explicit. Or, as she puts it in a poem from
Lovhers, because my obsession with reading / (with mouths) urges
me / toward every discourse. This excerpt contains one of Brossards
central gures, a gure that reveals the semantic interplay of writing
and lesbian desire, and is embedded in the French language: the ho-
mophones for tongue [langue] andlanguage [langue]. Of course, inEn-
glish the word tongue can refer to language, but it is a bit of an odd-
ity, with the whiff of slang about it, and sits a little to one side of the
more habitual word, language. Not so in French. The intermittence
of the tongue arouses the lover to her own language: the feel of
tongues, the patience / of mouths devoting themselves to understand-
ing (Lovhers). We are in a place of deep eroticism, but not of pornog-
raphy.The pleasure of the text, like lesbiansexuality, is as Barthes writes,
not the pleasure of the striptease or of narrative suspense. In these cases,
there is no tear, no edges: a gradual unveiling: the entire excitation takes
refuge in the hope of seeing the sexual organ (schoolboys dream) or in
knowing the end of the story (novelistic satisfaction).
30
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 1 3
Brossards poetry exploits the immediate pulse of pleasure. Abandon-
ing narrative teleology, we are content to remain at the tear, the edge,
in the silence of the page where convulsively white this body speaks
(The Part for the Whole).
But how do we read the aesthetic in Brossard? What is her works
relationshipto poetic Beauty, whichI here mark, perhaps provocatively,
with a capital letter? I bring this up in part because I feel we must, as
Brossard herself does, go beyond the thematic and the gestural to
explain what makes her writing so alluring and, indeed, so pleasurable.
Among anglophone readers, Brossards writing has been classied as
experimental, a word which at this point carries a well-known set of
assumptions. When we read experimental poetry, we expect meaning
not to come easily, normal syntax to be disrupted, our received ideas
about what poetry looks and sounds like to be challenged, and the poet
to put all these devices in service to some larger, political and ideological
changebeyond poetry. Louise H. Forsyth describes these expecta-
tions and howBrossards work fullls them: Brossards works are al-
ways experimental. She does not ever allowreaders of her texts to take
her words for granted. . . . This is bywayof effective resistance tothe per-
formativelinguistic formulaeof hegemonic discourse that imposes norms
regarding subjectivity.
31
Readings like this one are important, for they
allow scholars a theoretical way into the poetic mind they might not
otherwise have, and they illustrate howpoetry can have wide-ranging
cultural impact. And yet, such scholarly perceptions of experimental
poetrys efcacy risk conning its importance to historically bounded
ideological concerns. Perhaps we should also ask, What effect does ex-
perimental poetry have on readers who feel they have already broken
free of the norms imposed upon them by hegemonic discourse?
And what about readers who do not and never have taken words for
granted? Have such readers outgrown the particular kinds of intel-
1 4 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
lectual pleasure Brossards poems offer? Of course not. Brossards po-
etry doesnt just interrogate establishedpoetic devices or subvert cultural
assumptions, it alsocreates somethingentirely new, a newspace of mind,
of body, of life. Aspace in which it becomes possible not only to imag-
ine a better future, but also to more easily live and breathe right now.
Beauty has something to do with this. There is an aesthetic pleasure
to be had when reading Brossards poems, just as when we gaze upon
the body of a lover. It is not just an idea, but something to look at.
Granted, we may be more likely to nd the words happiness, de-
sire, eroticism, and body in Brossards work than any mention of
Beauty (though she does use it), and yet it is a word that cannot help
but occur when reading her poems. In the Greek pantheon, Beauty is
feminine and disruptive, shaping and changing history, inspiring sim-
ply by existing. There is much Beauty to be found here, of language,
of mind, of landscape, and indeed, of women. Perhaps Brossards se-
rial poemTheThroat of Lee Miller, fromMuseumof Bone andWater,
canstandfor the many others. No simple ekphrasis of ManRays iconic
1929 photograph Lee Miller: Neck, Brossards poem moves the vi-
sual into the literary, translating the invitation of that image into the
poetic desire for repetition and intermittence. Lee Millers neck is a
thing of astounding feminine beauty that, once seen, is difcult to for-
get. But Brossard doesnt need to tell us that, she can simply evoke it,
record her desire . . . and write. Listen:
/ often in the same phrase I return
knowing to repeat just there
where worry still craves vows entwined
and as we translate
to explain my genre I watch
the throat of Lee Miller that year
it was worth every abstraction
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 1 5
The translator makes the smart decision to leave the word genre,
which in English as in French may refer to kind or style but in
French also refers to the gender of words (that is, masculine, feminine,
or neuter). A resonance emerges: to explain my gender I watch / the
throat of Lee Miller. . . . Both the image and gender are being trans-
lated. Another excerpt arouses more meaning: and as we translate/ I
touchcertainplaces I exhaust myself//the throat of Lee Miller/no trace
of a kiss. We can read no trace of a kiss in at least two ways. On the
image of Lee Millers throat, there is no lipstick trace, or other im-
pression of a kiss. In addition, the poet has not kissed the image, or left
her mark, thoughshe felt the desire to do so andwas provoked: I touch
certain places I exhaust myself.These lines bring us backto those pre-
viously cited, it was worth every abstraction. The abstract idea still
arouses, still leads to satisfaction. Similarly for Brossards poetry, the
idea though abstracted yet yields satisfaction.
The loss in English of the double meaning of genre brings up the is-
sue of translation. It is a key issue for this collection, since Brossard is
a poet for whom words and their elementssignier, phoneme,
graphemeare never casually employed. She is a devotee of word-
play, almost to a Cratylus-like
32
pitch, andwordplay, as RosmarieWal-
drop points out, is particularly vulnerable to the action of transla-
tion.
33
Often, it is simply lost. Though, as Waldrop also reminds us,
sometimes what is lost in one instance can be gained in another; some-
times the target language (the language into which the poemis be-
ing translated) can offer delights not found in the source language.
Barbara Godards translation of Brossards 1980 book Amantes offers
a case in point. The French title means lovers, but that nal e gen-
ders the word as feminine. Lovers in English is not gendered, and
therefore the word initially conjures the normative image, a hetero-
sexual pairing. Godard solves the loss of the feminine implication of
1 6 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
the Englishlovers by employing wordplay not present inthe French.
She invents the word lovhers. When rst encountering this new
word we as readers must stop. Weve never seen it before, and yet we
recognize the parts that have gone into its making. Meaning is not dis-
rupted but enhanced. Godards English title also alerts us that we are
meeting a book lled with desire and play, a thoroughly ludic work.
What Godard gains in this one word invention helps quell the frus-
tration of what might be lost elsewhere as she moves Brossards text
into English. For example, throughout Lovhers, a delirious bookquick-
ened by erotic language and quotations frommajor gures in the fem-
inist and lesbian pantheon, Brossard repeats the line: je narrte pas
de lire.Translated literally this means simply, I dont stop reading.
But inthe Frenchthe wordplay betweende lire (to read) anddlire
(frenzy and, further, un-reading) is obvious. In order to bring this
meaning across Godard must improvise, adding language not found
in the original, and so je narrte pas de lire becomes i dont
stop reading/deliring.
34
I have to resort to a similar compromise when translating The Part
for the Whole. A line in the second poem of the sequence reads in the
French: vulvelue(t) vu. Inthe Frenchwordvulve (vulva) Brossard
sees lu (read) and vu (seen), et means and, thus leaving us (minus the
t, which she puts into parentheses) with the straight translation
vulvaread and seen. In the English all sense that the graphemes
of one word morphed into three other words is lost. Frustrated, I de-
cide to include the French phrase, though some English readers will
be excluded. The result is the none-too-happy vulvalu e(t) vu
read and seen. I console myself with the thought that Brossard often
mixes the two languages in her poems. But then, when I translate an-
other poem, The Marginal Way, I amgiven a gift. Nine stanzas in,
I amconfronted with a line that stands as a good example of Brossards
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 1 7
language mixing and wordplay: my mind agite lessentielle. Trans-
lated literally we get: my mind upsets the essential. But when the elle
(her) at the end of the line goes missing, the feminine is lost. Since
Brossards entire career has beendedicatedto putting the feminine back
in, this is no casual sacrice. But then, I nd it. Not an exact match,
but the essence is honored: my mind upsets the inherent. In the orig-
inal French, my mind is in English, and so I make a second decision
to move this phrase into French, so a reader will have the sense of two
languages operating in one poetic line. In the nal translation the
French my mind agite lessentielle becomes the English mon esprit
upsets the inherent. Translator Guy Bennetts lovely rendering of
Brossards 2003 chapbook, Shadow: Soft et Soif, is an excellent illustra-
tion of this poets beautiful ability to skillfully weave together French
and English, starting with the titles gentle rhyme of the English soft
with the French soif (thirsty).
In these moments in Brossards work, English and French collabo-
rate. It is a reection of a general value toward community and collab-
oration that can be seen throughout her life as a poet. In the 1980s she
collaboratedontwo books of poetry withthe anglophone Canadianpoet
Daphne Marlatt, and has worked with visual artists, notably with
Francine Simonin, in the untranslated Darc de cycle la derive and Note-
book of Roses and Civilization. This ethos of anopenness to collaboration,
to working with others, makes Brossards poetry an especial pleasure
to translate. Instead of the all-too-common feeling that, in translating,
we are destroying the original, Brossards poetry makes us feel that we
are collaborating with her, responding to a generous call.
It has beenalmost one hundredandforty years since Rimbaudcalled
for poets to invent a new language. The existing one was insufcient
to the task of responding to, or inventing, the dreams of the future.
Mallarm too looked and longed for a different language, though he
1 8 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
felt a supreme language of perfect communication already existed
on some mysterious plane. He was tortured by the Babel problem: the
worry that languages are imperfect precisely because multiple, and, in-
deed, the dilemmas of translation could be interpreted as evidence of
this imperfection. How can truth hold across these different ways of
saying things? Disturbedby the instability of meaning, Mallarm could
not well bear (though he saw it before Saussure) what would become
the central tenet of twentieth-century linguistics: the arbitrary rela-
tionship between signier and signied. His frustration was palpable:
I amdisappointed when I consider howimpossible it is for language
to express things by means of certainkeys whichwouldreproduce their
brilliance and aura. . . . We dreamof words brilliant at once in mean-
ing and sound, or darkening in meaning and so in sound, luminously
andelementally self-succeeding.
35
Thoughwords may be inexact signs
ill-adaptedto rendering the real (night sounds bright whenit should
sound dark, or history excludes her story), Mallarm also recognized
the role of poets in rectifying this discrepancy. But, let us remember
that if our dreamwere fullled [for a supreme language], verse would
not exist!
36
Neither would this book, nor the stunning poetic accom-
plishment of Nicole Brossard. While her quest through the landscape
of language is conducted in a way far less labyrinthine and agonized
than Mallarms in Un coup de ds, she nevertheless undertakes the
journey with similar passionate conviction. She is always pressuring
the borders: the way words signify and slip, and how the edges along
them (or their horizons, to use a favorite word of hers) can be sites
of intellectual and erotic awakening. She is also motivated as a writer
by a desire to, as she puts it, distance death and stupidity, lies and vi-
olence.
37
Brossard reminds us that the call to reinvent language is no
ip grab for novelty but a deeply political call necessary to our survival.
Inorder to conjure a collective andhabitable world, we must mindour
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 1 9
words. As Brossard critic Forsyth puts it, words are means to produce
sharing among real writers and readersalong with textual and vir-
tual onesas they work together like creatively engaged translators
to make meanings out of personal experiences and collective lives.
38
It is a group project, with ethical implications, one that Brossard does
not take lightly:
There is a price for consciousness, for transgression. Sooner or later,
the body of writing pays for its untamed desire of beauty and knowl-
edge. I have always thought that the word beauty is related to the word
desire. There are words, which, like the body, are irreducible: To write
I am a woman is full of consequences.
Thankfully this intensely solemn mission, a mission that isas Bros-
sard reminds us in this quote, one of her most famous statements
full of consequences, is made, under her ne pen, so extraordinarily
pleasurable that few will want to resist it.
Jennifer Moxley
Orono, Maine 2008
N O T E S
1 Louise Forsyth, ed., Nicole Brossard (Toronto: Guernica Press, 2005), 20.
2 Nicole Brossard, Fluid Arguments, ed. Susan Rudy, trans. Anne-Marie Wheeler
(Toronto: Mercury Press, 2005), 69.
3 Out of 150 articles listed on the MLA bibliography, only 19 list the word po-
etry in the subject category. Brossards novels Mauve Desert and Picture Theory,
with35 and11 articles respectively, have receivedthe most critical attention. That
said, it should be noted that Brossards novels are far fromconventional, and in
many ways resemble poetry.
4 Forsyth, Nicole Brossard, 22.
5 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 119.
2 0 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
6 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 30.
7 For an excellent overview of the role of literature in the Qubec identity
project, see Mary JeanGreen, Women and Narrative Identity: Rewriting the Que-
bec National Text (Montreal: McGill-Queens University Press, 2001). In addi-
tion, I am indebted to Greens argument for my subsequent remarks on
womens role in this project, as well as its literary parameters.
8 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 30.
9 Jacques Godbout, Novembre 1971/Ecrire, quoted in Green.
10 Green, Women and Narrative Identity, 19.
11 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 122.
12 Much of this sketch, including quoted material, is culled fromBrossards own
short Autobiography, in Fluid Arguments, 117145.
13 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 129.
14 Ferdinandde Saussure, Cours de linguistique gnrale (1916; NewYork: McGraw
Hill, 1966).
15 Needless to say, Lacan reads this division through the lens of psychoanalysis,
not poetry.
16 Oulipo (short for Ouvroir de littrature potentielle, or workshop for potential lit-
erature) is the name of a group of primarily francophone writers who create
literary works using structural constraints, sometimes based on mathematical
formulas. Writers associated with Oulipo include Raymond Queneau, Georges
Perec, Jacques Roubaud, and Harry Mathews. The Oulipians borrowed the
termplagiarismby anticipation fromearly Christian theologians, who used
it to explainhowsome parallels betweenpaganandChristianritual were caused
by the devils plagiarizing the gospels before they were written in order to dis-
credit them.
17 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 121.
18 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 31.
19 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 139.
20 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 118.
21 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 273n.
22 Roland Barthes, The Pleasure of theText, trans. Richard Miller (NewYork: Hill
and Wang, 1975), 17.
23 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 68.
I N T R O D U C T I O N / 2 1
24 Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, 16.
25 MoniqueWittig, One is Not Born aWoman, in MoniqueWittig, The Straight
Mind (Boston: Beacon 1992), 550.
26 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 106.
27 Arthur Rimbaud, Complete Works, Selected Letters, trans. Wallace Fowlie (Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 2005), 379.
28 Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, 10.
29 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 34.
30 Barthes, The Pleasure of the Text, 10.
31 Forsyth, Nicole Brossard, 35.
32 InPlatos dialogue Cratylus, Cratylus denies the arbitrary relationship of the sig-
nier to the signied, positing that words are naturally connected to the things
they represent.
33 Rosmarie Waldrop, Silence, the Devil, and Jabs, in Dissonance (if you are
interested) (Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 2005), 146. My sub-
sequent remarks on translation are also indebted to Waldrops thinking in this
essay.
34 For anexcellent analysis of this andsimilar translationissues inBrossards work,
see Susan Holbrooks essay Delirious Translations in the Works of Nicole
Brossard, in Forsyth, Nicole Brossard, 175190.
35 Stephane Mallarm, Crisis in Poetry, in Mallarm: Selected Prose Poems, Es-
says, and Letters, trans. Bradford Cook (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Press,
1956).
36 Ibid.
37 Brossard, Fluid Arguments, 35.
38 Forsyth, Nicole Brossard, 36.
2 2 \ I N T R O D U C T I O N
K E Y T O T R A N S L A T O R S
GB Guy Bennett
DD David Dean
BG Barbara Godard
PJ Pierre Joris
RM & EM Robert Majzels and Ern Moure
EM & RM Ern Moure and Robert Majzels
J M Jennifer Moxley
L N Lucille Nelson
L S Larry Shouldice
FW Fred Wah
L W Lise Weil
A- MW Anne-Marie Wheeler
2 3
N O T E
Many of the poems in this volume have been translated from French
into English for the first time. Please see the catalog of works at the
backof the bookfor the publicationhistory of Nicole Brossards works
in French and those previously translated into English (p. 221). In ad-
dition, please see the credits section for a list of all the works whose se-
lections appear inthis volume or that appear here intheir entirety, with
original French titles included (p. 236).
P
O
E
M
S
This page intentionally left blank
from T H E E C H O M O V E S B E A U T I F U L
neutral the world envelops me neutral
with lightning bolts of contradiction
it is naked desolate and yet inhales
I knew it by the rhythmgetting ready there
I
zero & time stirs with troubles
of radiant mouth tempo
warmbreath invade the center
disk of a world thats mine
the electronic truths lose themselves in excess
that beats hard on frail images
the mirror ceaselessly swells
each silent measure wells up directly in the belly
I
the back all she curve you hear me fromaback
murmuring desire catching my breath
to reach you the other way around
your hot muscles anticipate me
here clear weather measureless and of total hunger
2 7
lightning tears so beautiful the charmO
inside the joy
I
it is at the threshold of rhythmthat I carry this
terrestrial equilibriumwhere fromchinese shadow I
shift to devious shadow: I decline
curved silhouette under the somber lampshade
I
phantomfountain veiled the fog traces
by nger the lip between the walls I ask
what time at the same time in this here place
outside against the pane zero the circle whirls
radiant head how
I
shop windows to grab the drunken rumor
the gazes intersect op the game
and your dreamamong these liquors you slide
fromheaven into night the alarmtroubles
in you darkening gravitates blood jostles
I
seek there that faraway depends if you look close
by far however try if you touch the wall
or the avid emptiness that
no connectionthat
reins you in
2 8 \ P O E M S
unless you discover according to
your step so passing by
the rude root I wonder
although no root odor they blend all possibly
I
yes this clear weather between the eyelashes why
so many lines episodes today
difcult despite the calmof being
without memory to guess zero in the white
to draw the cipher the extreme word
or a lower case swing and game simultaneously
an iron red a brilliant suite
I
listen rather peacefully to the barks cracking
the bark you saturated with oil or soap
nails teeth skull murmur their
echo at all costs
the sound shadow invading you
I
P J
I
T H E E C H O M O V E S B E A U T I F U L / 2 9
from L O G I C A L S U I T E
everything gels white
in happy time
deep dark also
all chaos when your hand passes too much
then departure for
belly thus all is there
as sprout as latency
oversteps the mark and never restricts itself
curved line never gels in the past
what the belly espouses up front
in my saying naked
the color though ctive so true
cuts in the delirious black
I
mutual attractions
when intimate renewal
appropriates from
us locks in together
displace the shadow so slowly
3 0 \ P O E M S
around us
that the bonds move very initiatory
I
between the lines the liquid slides
and imposes itself novel
thus fromthe body pleasure gushes
delicious humidity the mauve rests
and inscribes itself radiant fixity
I
afterward its so little
once times slid out of reach
afterward its however
to retrace ones steps
when the gures put forward rip
I
its only initial and doesnt stop being so
the movement
displacing distorting
the horizon the horizon broken
always too imponderable
I
to act and tend
in the risen night
toward the hidden places
to act swaying between
the world rhythmthe authentic
doubly silence pours forth carnal
L O G I C A L S U I T E / 3 1
I
again and without cease
entrancing contrast
that reworks the outlines
draws themaway fromthe goal
forces our orientation
again
and time shakes fromnot being eternal
I
there is the palpable night shifts feverish
that is to say disconcerting verbal variant
oh how the invariable elsewhere tames the pronoun
in this imprecise zone of the present
never was the ephemeral so close to the trap
yet it is a matter of the same saying
between charmand trap, it oscillates
I
suspension of the act
to understand is a sojourn
excluding any denition
to breathe to show nothing
though everything rushes in
perpetual face
no matter the mask
I
P J
I
3 2 \ P O E M S
SUBORDI NAT I NG WORDS
with a single signifying stroke when the saying leaks
the word massacre(s)
intensity first of all
by probing further ahead further
down
farther away
the formula is born
fromwhere does one know it by what by a point
thus vibrant for it nourishes and weighs fully
on the meaning and the counter
in gender agrees with unruly in number
and moves
liaison
the more it precedes the ink
pushes precisely (before) outside and inside
transition
or
droll these signs empty and blue despite
even if (that is to say although)
L O G I C A L S U I T E / 3 3
3 4 \ P O E M S
restriction
nevertheless
explication
vague it is
because too much space between the words
vague and beautiful to consume the liaison
as soon as it enunciates itself
paradoxically future and past engender
at the same time
that moment when it goes without saying that crossing
it happens that black/ black badly cross-rules
the white spaces
limit of contrast
L O G I C A L S U I T E / 3 5
in these opaque times heaven hauled that many frenzies
thus sparkles the artice and exposes itself
eventual accomplishment
all on the surface
fromriot to fabulous sonorous suites
the said connection erasure
double exasperation
the code struts the code analyses the code dictates
and at the exact opposite the tender code appears
between code and code space is illusory
no place conducive to denunciation
terminology modies
the code inltrates
the least attempt at resistance
henceforth meaning will be double
one too many
the artice is inevitable
heres how.
I
P J
I
from T H E WH I T E C E N T R E
I I I
this time time the time white the white centre the centre opening every-
where dazzling within me silent participant attentive this time the en-
ergy the energy begins again the ultimate meaning utmost force in this
body roused vibrating as if expanding and in doing so expanding no
longer holding anything fast this time nothing everything comes to an
end in this instant this hollow second
I V
the word vertigo placed then between the seer and the word the word
again in general when abstraction takes everything from desires be-
comes formlife absorbs me words fail but specifying is not the solution
unity is outside the line continues in the period that distances itself al-
ways withdraws in the ultimate gesture that will set everything down
in the same time place in the formof a white mark in a blank space
V
attentive to the silence to the moment when nothing happens when
the blank becomes life in its place the whole body is freed fromlife ec-
3 6 \ P O E M S
stasy the life of the centre state pure vigilance when the whole mind
exists without constraint continual state of watching established from
smile to smile inside the same attentive and happy persons body no-
body there
V
the word proliferates intelligence receives in successive waves the vig-
orous thrust of words words that engender beyond the real that radi-
ate so strongly and powerfully that ramify useless and disordered the
gestures of concentration words memory the past the future word or
the whole present alone involves me andwords become fertile elsewhere
V
present time present knowledge in the steadiness of the gaze the ex-
pansion of the motionless body vertiginous expansion time stopped
present encompassing recovering all attempts nowonly the prevailing
atmosphere of deathanonymous deathstructure at last clear white ster-
ile memory that there had been a present time
V I
always it begins again breath endlessly nally never stops because
everything in the breath is recomposed in each second it happens cy-
cle the inevitable one after another things revolve around as before as
after time affects sometimes but the cycle of desires always starts again
this end this future that loops in advance
T H E W H I T E C E N T R E / 3 7
V I
that takes place while time seems to stop lucid more and more each
formdetaching things unique during this complete pause can one be-
lieve because the sharpness of each perception enables me to see more
clearly the more I approach the lives the forces exert themselves still a
terrible quietness grips the surroundings
V I
when there is nothing more at the circumference life is born and dies
on the inside according to the same laws a luminous consciousness at-
tained sovereign presence all that being ecstasy the intense breathing
the intense completion of future times and others that the under-
standing of structures more than ever intoxicating death
V I
the precise word perhaps already doubt places each word on the edge
of the sought for meaning the word translation rather event or excess
the precision being inner event silent revealing through the muscle
bers the breath alone the real structure of enclosing forces their limits
V I
to return there (no) departure point death sign that what does not
change speaks gives life doubly multiplies it when everything happens
withinthe unity to returnthere always memory of these returns of these
lasting deaths too little deathso that softness penetrates everywhere that
life withdraws and rejoins the dead centres
3 8 \ P O E M S
V I I
everything is neutralized and illuminated emptied of all meaning all
death breathes white silence of memory silence silence silence mem-
ory all in a single breath the ultimate centre where everything at last
can concentrate white centre without surface time time transforms
nothing in future time hardens white
V I I
white everything is present dead soft silence and empty of everything
death in future breath hardened everything concentrates in this place
memory is only memory is no longer in this moment anonymous im-
personal the moment of death death seeps into the white breath in this
present which is eternalized neutral
V I I
deathso that it may come inthe quietness joy breathrhythmedlife con-
centratedinto a single small point (death) life anonymous since emerg-
ing from the same blank the same present memory transforms noth-
ing in future white pause the white centre the body breath death
V I I I
so everything is that way at the precise moment when here there is
nothing other than time seized in the instant when unfolds elsewhere
memory unfolds here then nothing is other than perceived according
to the calmness in the instant when everything is that way an attitude
taken in relation to the nal illusions
I
B G
I
T H E W H I T E C E N T R E / 3 9
from D A Y D R E A M M E C H A N I C S
REV ERSE/ DRI FT
and touches magically
the consenting skin
all the spells that cross it
and circulate slow curves
in the forbidden areas
give your consent
so that the beast becomes enamoured
of strangeness and lifts its claws
to your neck
4 0 \ P O E M S
you reveal yourself without motive muscle
you scrape the curves
and in the rhythmlet yourself
bend and dance the charms
she-wolf out of place in the season
adrift on the horizon
a slow image of pleasure
D A Y D R E A M M E C H A N I C S / 4 1
black quiver oh move persuasive
the words desire and me blindly
the passing effects which arouse
reawaken the claws which incline one
to open and celebration between the teeth
the hair and dark set off
out of control
strength of connection of moving lips
cast us adrift reverse the pauses of love
since with time silence
breath shields herself and bites
4 2 \ P O E M S
and slowness nestles down
the hair
awakening ravenous unleashed
our strategy
the seduction swerved
D A Y D R E A M M E C H A N I C S / 4 3
beast looms in the place
cuts off meaning devours
and restores the contours
of the unit
the image in the shadowy light
asleep to the missing sun
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
if come close insist as if to seduce
and to melt together afterwards
useless among the other words
then the shoulder falls asleep and seeks
no other victimto overturn through
pleasure and privation
I
L S
I
4 4 \ P O E M S
A ROD FOR A HANDSOME PRI CE
(fromher to ravish meaning ravine. On the other side
artice slumbers in the green. The shadow follows hour
by hour hollow and gloomy and which call me forth)
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . grafted onto the sentence
o a long time distant to hang on my belly obscure parallel
images and tattoos age suggestive of the ngernail grazing
the thigh the valley get turned on
D A Y D R E A M M E C H A N I C S / 4 5
the body gentle with daring
drug to take away her meaning
her skin of orange and olive
her texture of assailing couple
(you underline themwith a stroke
like the bed under their weight
their pleasure)
. . . . . . . . . . . and plunge down
and so body to body in the tuft
her spreading out in vegetation
right to them
the point of consent and
afrmation
little magic boxes . . . . . . . . . . . .
4 6 \ P O E M S
the skin a free grammar
of silence canvas of impressions of
representation
re: artice a distance
the true skin strips off the vowels
illustrate
the soft sponges or the ne cob
D A Y D R E A M M E C H A N I C S / 4 7
the denite connection that exists
between ravishing meaning fromher and
magic boxes
I
a rod for a handsome price swells
(but)
since the grafts
gently the words run
along it quietly
I
L S
I
4 8 \ P O E M S
from T H E P A R T F O R T H E WH O L E
my lacerating strategist who leads me to ction
censored in the liars edits or time
the split: desires reection is like this
a lure thrown out in vain
spinning through space until
the creature says: my blood doesnt t
this version or excerpt anymore
T H E P A R T F O R T H E W H O L E / 4 9
to save her provocative skin
to lose reason the rush the goods
spread-out by the mirror if you attempt
a moons discretion between your thighs
the liquid outcome
vulvalu e(t) vuread and seen
in reality you undress her skin
and take it all in
5 0 \ P O E M S
feignedthe entire bid / ction
the injurys intuition (the injured)
her tongue speaks with a hole the one licked
or its a place to perplex the delicious expert
she trembles in love inversely
her memory perplexes the slutstory museum
woman / voting booth / stretch marks: what a beautiful baby!
she soaks without quoting, very private
T H E P A R T F O R T H E W H O L E / 5 1
that tends to ow
the day drenched in ink
green or that moment you open your robe
egress illustrated
circadian today and
the moon your condition of rhythmsister
with syrupy insides she depletes
the planet of corridors lled with crossroads
my wife aroused a vow circling your passionate neck
5 2 \ P O E M S
her ass and thank goodness dissolves the
rst stone or this erosion of the dismissal
for she cheats all lost time by playing
opposite
silently on the outskirts of town
without context (swallowing but concise)
so she says: thats senseless
or irony of the after-effect the abolished
without history and mother tongue in hospital
convulsively white this body speaks
perhaps to amuse herself underground
but at heart charged without restraint
she starts over fromthe bottomof the page
lled with the unleashed scents that undress her:
ying
T H E P A R T F O R T H E W H O L E / 5 3
drying up or ctive the liar opens
her st this abduction all conned by the masculine
spread out
her withdrawit dependsat what price
and the beyond amends her history
you get wet and dry up in pleasant parallels
drifting when the net is lifted
or concealed down to your feet you put on the brakes
and yet this pretext intervenes with your hand as process
a gripping sift of the inside or a return to self
this morning shifting history with a silent e
I
J M
I
5 4 \ P O E M S
from L O V H E R S
( 4) : L OV HERS / WRI T E
it celebrates cerebral spinning
Mary Daly
One of the festivals celebrated by the companion lovhers called a love festival may
take many forms. Love festivals are generally a mutual celebration of two or more
companion lovhers.
Monique Wittig
Sande Zeig
L O V H E R S / 5 5
somewhere always a statement, skin concentrated
systeminverted
attentive to the phases of love, this text
under the eye: June aroused by audacity
precise lips or this allurement of the clitoris
its unrecorded thought giving the body back intelligence
because each shiver aims at the emergence
June the fever the end of couples
their prolongation like the most unexpected of
silences: lesbian lovhers
the texture of identities
in reality, there is no ction
5 6 \ P O E M S
the rapture said L. to grasp the sense
of a mental experience where fragments and delirium
fromthe explosion translate an experiment on riot
within the self as a theory of reality
rain prose simultaneously
a process which concentrates me through the lips
on your shoulder
urges the spasm
to become graphic: nothing tires our thighs
except a little gesture, a coincidence
that accompanies us for a long time the time
of a few decisive seconds:
moan so as to trace identity on the self
in the laboratory of emotions
I DONT STOP READING/ DELIRING
INTHIS JUNE OF LOVHERS
all my muscles this spiral
of your hands in the secret on my breasts
Eye open to strange correspondences
Michle Causse
I DONT STOP READING/ DELIRING
L O V H E R S / 5 7
according to the years of reality, imagine going fromcity to city to re-
cite the smooth versions that slip into each body instigating the un-
folding, the excitation: everywhere women kept watch in the only way
plausible: beautiful and serious in their energy from spiral to spiral
under the oranges of L.A. the frontier of re between the ludicrous
palmtree and the red owers like aluminumfoil. i ampresent at the
accessible intersection of all the dangers which boost the current of
compatible skins excitation: what imperils reality, like an invitation to
knowledge, integral presence
near me, her uid thought, ink,
her voice faintly seeking out words
a few feet away, our acts of
meditation face to face with writing
stretched out towards her with the same intensity
as my bending over her: breath
I DONT STOP READING/ DELIRING
5 8 \ P O E M S
the splendor, said O.
your strong tongue and slender ngers
reaching where I had been waiting years for you
in my rose-wet cavewhatever happens, this is.
Adrienne Rich
everywhere the project of cities and geographies to arouse our bodies
to ever greater uidity, endless ood into our mouths of savors makes
this approach of deliriumcompatible with the mind and we imagine
newcustoms withthese same mouths that knowhowto make a speech,
ours tasting of words tasting of kisses (i dont stop reading / deliring
excitation: what arouses the unrecorded in my skin)
L O V H E R S / 5 9
science says Xa.
lick to the heart of our vast plot
Louky Bersianik
in the happy position of hands on hips a sexual tenderness runs
throughout distancesre is all we can see, the permanence of desire
in our precision exercises because our searching lips captivate all our
attention, called forth by the science of our music
June, the urgency of the fold: ramied couple holding in my hand
a book by Djuna Barnes, I cant stop reading / deliring, i need all
my tensions when confronting the drift because in all my muscles, a
need for suppleness, that is when i make a spiral in front of you and
when the strangest seduction takes form at the same time as the
embrace. tonight it seems night pushes us to behavior which is
sweetly desiring and our mouths are slowly extinguished, we cant be
more attentive to their effects.
I
B G
I
6 0 \ P O E M S
J UL Y T HE SEA
Since the day when the lesbian peoples renounced the idea that it was absolutely
necessary to die, no one has. The whole process of death has ceased to be a custom.
Monique Wittig
Sande Zeig
L O V H E R S / 6 1
Emerging (Kay Gardner): noon la mer
METAPHORS splendor (4) fromenergy
rounded with desires / our progress
mouths: coffee noon sea
pretext origin of the kiss: taste
mobile in the full ood of memory _______________ breath
and biographical shoulders emerging
like a process
the tides (at this level):
a reex of rising tides
6 2 \ P O E M S
to nd again every day life of lesbian
ctions of writing of obscurity and diurnal
the feel of tongues, the patience
of mouths devoting themselves to understanding
integral
body against thighs legato
only fever: the eye without its sighting
L O V H E R S / 6 3
and thought takes shape
with suppleness in every sense
coincidence
concentrated in the island (4) loving women
picture theory / juillet la mer
voice the tongues intention
6 4 \ P O E M S
frommetaphor to rising tide
the versions
a formof perception my form
that founds the sounds
round us like letters
experimental
the tide amorous spiral
I run the risk of conquest
so as not to be non-sense
L O V H E R S / 6 5
memory, some words are such
that an embrace conceives
their surfaces / allusions
because my obsession with reading
(with mouths) urges me
toward every discourse
round the generic sap
obsession tied to what questions
the abandon the conquest vulva wave
the tide of desire the keen defeat
of the writing fervent conquest: to read
6 6 \ P O E M S
july the sea is the provisional articulation
of pleasure which my sister brigand draws
our points of falling (emergency curves)
when turning the page means:
to follow
our reading binding our intentions like
a thought
issuing fromthis force defeated
inside our heads celebrating the reex of vertigo
we can conceive anything
L O V H E R S / 6 7
concrete within the ction (wellspring
prolonging you)
fromlanguage and its folds
matter, all tides at the limit
in my temples are presented
skins of convocation in the prospect
of pacts ___________ women reclining
6 8 \ P O E M S
feverish seaside coffee
scenario of what causes suffering
in the voices
how to describe this opera of the interior
passion like an overture
on the sea, a reection
of the voice to arouse interest
illusion _____________ lyre
L O V H E R S / 6 9
last day on the island: amorous
rigor has assumed its sense and numbers
vigilant seductions assemble
for concentration (everything is so concrete,
orgasmlike a process leading
to the integral: end of fragments
in the fertile progress of lovhers
I
B G
I
7 0 \ P O E M S
T HE BARBI ZON HOT EL FOR WOMEN
an intuition of reciprocal knowledge
women with curves of re and eiderdown
fresh-skinnedessential surface
you oat within my page she said
and the four dimensional woman is inscribed
in the space between the moon and (re belt)
of the discovery and combats that the echo
you persevere, fervor aming
L O V H E R S / 7 1
mouth diffuse, nocturnal and intimate
round with intervals
to pass through the gardens of the real
anticipated paintings of the attentive body
all the regions of the brain
time is measured here in waters
into vessels, in harmony
the precision of grafti in our eyes
fugitives (here) the writings
in the barbizon hotel for women
nascent gures within the wheel
cyclical tenderness converging
7 2 \ P O E M S
space (m)
among all ages, versatile
wrinkles of the unexpected woman
when midnight and the elevator
in us rises the uidity
our feet placed on the worn out carpets
here the girls of the Barbizon
in the narrow beds of America
have invented with their lips
a vital formof power
to stretch out side by side
without parallel and: fusion
L O V H E R S / 7 3
but the napes of our necks attentive when
on Lexington Avenue steps
move close to us again
because the scene is memory
and the memory within our pages
explodes
like a perfect technique
around this eccentric passion
we imagine in the beautiful grey
chignons of the women of the Barbizon
7 4 \ P O E M S
so transformme, she said
into a watercolor in the bed
like a recent orbit
the curtains, the emotion
tonight we are going to the Sahara
L O V H E R S / 7 5
we are walking into the abstract (neons)
tonightoverexposedunfettered expression
nocturnal women
my reex and the circumstances
which my mouth walks like words
i expose myself: a useful precaution
sur terre: down town
amazons have studios for correspondence
7 6 \ P O E M S
and here again i nd an author too abstract
supplicating in space
body itself intensity
and the rain suddenly
abundant
to reunite intuitions of matter
I
B G
I
L O V H E R S / 7 7
from D O U B L E I M P R E S S I O N
T HE MARGI NAL WAY
the rare and difcult emotions
can they be taken off guard
like a double the sea, surrounding and well-dened
if she is reengaging with the project
if writing knows because it is real
or facing the landscape (au-del)
thought is ingratiating, then spatial
the will without option this is
desire, freeing or ctive the history
of the word esprit when she writes
ever more so for those born uid
already the body trembles in the atmosphere
of beech trees, glass, the compelling echo
There is no good likeness of me
on the beach/ sur la plage
the equivalence, still vague (wave) and bright range
is this not being, precisely
likely modernity in the rain
afnity assured
7 8 \ P O E M S
unexpectedly giving reality the slip
light slits the eyes
who then will recognize again
the primal version around the lips which
I will evoke three-dimensionally before
the echo the ight my body is vague (a wave)
an elision moving through several chapters
and still you want to transformle sombre des villes
again, on the beach, stretched out
. . . .
the feeling devastatingly the certainty
but rst she is at the heights
translucent against the outline of lawns
the gestures were subliminal consequence
so I took the landscape in her
for granted double sea binding
the body in the warmth
nor far fromthe sound of games
the continents succeed each other
in the shadows you think about passion
existence juxtaposed with vision
abridging the surfaces
you construct the day around
a certainty before the sea
the body burns in cerebral
proximity (marks its outline
at the burn horizon) of a line
as follows: the amazon
D O U B L E I M P R E S S I O N / 7 9
the intention extreme beauty
you add the landscape to the light
of inclination
the hour is plausible au-del de la ralit
the cosmic body comes fromafar
voie marginale, in a agrant way
poetry is perfect in the place
of transmission, the multiple faces mapped
such an idea in the atmosphere petite baie rocheuse
by means of pleasure the cliff, the equivalence
the resonance of the water
on this body or twofold way
devastatingly wave (vague)
DOTHE READINGANDILL FOCUS
memory fashions with hope
on the cliff the erosion the dictionary
you chose the language the contrast
so emerge in the bright afrmation
proceeding with your prior gaze
keeping the holographic walk
for ction
the cliff is not familiar
in shadow
borders harmthe gaze
yet I say being circumvents the echo
8 0 \ P O E M S
airborne in the overhead equation
of seas, this syllable here is hope
mon esprit upsets the inherent
she begins at the heart of the spiral
at the center of a planetary
burn, she trembles consequence
and future
for whomever is born uid devours the tides
if in the shadows I think of passion
at the back of fragments in complete tranquility
its a feature of reading
a position taken in order to see
the matter at borders split the eyes
I broadcast my existence live
I obstinately stretch out my prole
at the end of the century one day
inamed in the entity; at the horizon
the abstraction splits the cliff
it reminds me of her to nd myself
facing the landscape au-del du noir
chapter nished she touches you at
innitys last possible step
spinning the written
I
J M
I
D O U B L E I M P R E S S I O N / 8 1
8 2 \ P O E M S
from A V I V A
aviva
aviva a face and the relaying
of complicity, ample images
leaning toward the lure, her mouth
now the looks there are normally words
on the edge of emotion a phrase related
hidden and unknowingly caressed
while running the length of her arms in excitation
applied, the idea tenable tenacious
for linking
A V I V A / 8 3
the latest translated
anima image and effects
of afnity facial formation
all learning on her traits laid down
now the books singularly, you: virtue
in the distance, emotion emotes
in the innite utopia thus caress
in excitation running the height of the gesture
tongue voracious subject applied igneous
liaising
aviva
thus the aura leaning toward her
while the gure keeps watch
emotion and the (latest) humid, very
between the thighs taking, the time
and some verbs encountered mid-stay
8 4 \ P O E M S
the latest translated
thus fromher the lan and aura
of harmony while the freed gure
later be certain decide
between the words, what pleases is plenty
the detours mid-verb full shade
A V I V A / 8 5
aviva
applied in kind and impassioned
in the depths of the eyes the kind of passion
euphoria the concept, the saliva
and ink composed, the rivers sometimes
the limit, it is possible, bodies
applying themselves, raison dtre
8 6 \ P O E M S
the latest translated
this kind of panic applies
to eyes a single bound engender the horizon
attentive intercept utopia, alive
ink is sometimes opposite or yesterday
it is possible for a body to hesitate
around the being and apply itself
I
A - M W
I
A V I V A / 8 7
from T O E V E R Y G A Z E
CI T I ES BY T HE T OUCH
they say the night comes like a body
balanced paradoxical at the end
of ctions angular utopia
at dawn the proles sweep the
other ways away, not excluding
tomorrow like a realized joy
I
and sparks of devotion strike the dawn
at the pinnacle of instinct, breasts
and following
at the skin of touch even more scenes
while shoulders and story
the beam, the speeds of oblivion
in the lengthened night of lives
I
an infra-wager on a thought
the dreams ll the folds of night
and the word within nudity turning
the sequential voice
8 8 \ P O E M S
I
imprinting the page the idea
of dawn unfolds in this need to exist
expressions habit skins delirium
in the cities by the touch
reality like languages suppleness
in morning, coffee, the knowing evidence
of the senses
I
the trajectory verbs take when familiar
a reex at breaths edge is enough, epidermal
reection, cortex followed by concrete words
that afrmthat azure or tonight
and that using words, the voice
like beings trajectory forms
a resemblance
I
the ecstasies around sentences
noise of aura of aurora and glass
some cuts in broad daylight
in the space of swallowed syntheses
sense spins at top speed
an indigo day, the street, around the eyes
I
we will smile when the rapture is over
when it is calmor when reading
T O E V E R Y G A Z E / 8 9
the hour and the civilization late
and so we will smile as if engrossed
the drowsy language between
cortex and the edge of the sea
as if the whole body
was moving up the nape, and secret
I
expression a habit, an entire life:
a part of the image, bookmarked
in consciousness, quick strike
I
and silence like a support
of delirious things and the senses
such a skin possible fromthe closeness
like a moment
near the cornea this intimacy
of dawn that comes about, mist
a few syllables seaside, body
I
its because all comes sufciently
fromone perspective, of touch
and the traced images of dawn
like a well-rounded decision illustrating
mental fervor, a smile
overtaken by representation, the reex
of dawn
I
J M
I
9 0 \ P O E M S
I F Y ES SEI SMAL
(a transcreation from Si sismal)
if above the clysmic bark heaves
noise the voice detonates images and
words for life a little crazy we
think but all right before the actual
gures choose choice the border
labels space in you
if any persistent tissue bristles pitapat
on the hearts much too excited lip
could be the airs too rare
naturally some same body
remembers too late
to search for another wave
if a small cup of language
soups intention with a continued
expression against word crust
until the horizon of approach
whose fault whose lips
T O E V E R Y G A Z E / 9 1
if the forest of the voice
transforms into the trop of chaos
or melancholy installs itself
in the parlor of surprise plant
variety re-speak pond
if the see-saw bounces back hot to trot
trembling shows up again late cell
synapse applied part out on
a day of rest great truth
a vague smack of the lips
gulfs, coral, littoral
if, you tremble, you should see
inevitably there is some white
it is true and of course
you tremble
I
F W
I
9 2 \ P O E M S
O B S C U R E L A N G U A G E S / 9 3
I am interested in consciousness because there
are invisible structures in our bones that remove
us from childhood and family maneuvers.
Childhood is inadequate when one lives at the
center of the planets and the lie. Of course,
the souls dog, perched on anatomy, a great
interpreter of obscure languages, keeps watch so
we dont miss our chance to be saved among the
speaking beings, always meting out a bit of
hope through our habit of passing for an other. I
suppose that the collective recourse to I
facilitates this intensity at the center of the
planets and the lie.
We will have to agree over what inside us says
it is suffering. All civilizations have subdued
one aspect of suffering, allowing it to ower
inside absorbing passions, labors and vast
temples. We have spoken of the unconscious.
Many have insisted on the magic of womens
soft arms in the darkness. Often only
mentioning her passing smile, ignoring her as a
subject.
from O B S C U R E L A N G U A G E S
I suppose that the collective recourse to
suffering is justied. But we will remember that
it is while observing the stars that one part of
our madness was drained into music, the other,
to my great astonishment, into martial arts. I
suppose that suffering, if it were to disappear,
would require more precision in our proof of
love, more trembling in our vocal cords when I
name.
Someday we will have to agree over violence
and its long history. Its way of standing between
us and the pure beauty of sky and sea, which we
have forgotten to such a degree that our
terrorized eyes can no longer make out, through
the ood of thoughts, a horizon for our thoughts
to move on.
At the moment, Im interested in sounds that
cause nightmares in the dark, in the nylon
stocking hanging over the bed, in all
nationalisms, in each canine, in the live
broadcast of war. Like many before me, Im
interested in esh, in the long history of bruises,
scars, and cuts. But we will remember that,
unlike the animals, we can, with our eyes and
only our eyes, turn our desires and the
tormenting re into a watch. From a great
distance we can tell time with our eyes, if its
9 4 \ P O E M S
about a man or a women before dreaming. But
we will have to agree over the color of artillery
shells so we do not confuse them with the pure
beauty of sea and sky.
I admit it, to write makes no sense unless it
helps us to concentrate on living well. All
writing is sentimental subject. Those before us,
fertile with images, accepted their inclinations,
others, free to think, declared their dissent, but
each time a soft breeze on their skin surprised
them, it taught them of a pleasure that would
haunt long after thought has declared itself
fertile. I admit it, our eyes aimat hope.
I am interested in consciousness because in the
midst of reality beauty always produces a
feeling of solitude. Each time thought travels the
length of the spine, slowly moving toward our
facial features, I am interested in the ctions
which fan out, transforming solitude into
customs peopled with caresses and alibi.
Everyday the shadow slows above our heads,
repeats its idea while the body, in the center,
persists. I am interested in consciousness,
because when life is an idea that brings us closer
to silence, our pain is invalid.
I
J M
I
O B S C U R E L A N G U A G E S / 9 5
from V E R T I G O O F T H E P R O S C E N I U M
the habit of bad readings because of the immensity
the taste for surprises and for the moment
like a hot drink
the immensity how far would we go
I
circumstance of the eyes the pleasure would repeat
sometimes wed say farewell it seems a silence
an act of pure will to come back
to the beginning caressing eyes
our lives in miniature
I
bustle of metaphors
a touch of ction
if it is a book it is a space to last
relay of meaning at the end of our ashes
a feverish touch of presence
I
9 6 \ P O E M S
deep down in the throat and the imaginary
a verbal velocity that commits
to tie up in so many pages and light years
the conversation as if an overview
of the child coursing through our veins
I
lets not touch silence
it is our reserve of hope
the renewed function of the future
a ash of wit gone joyous to wait
under our eyelids
perfect distortion of the real
I
fact of language torments
catch me in my tradition
in the duration of the sentence
pleasure sweetly spaced out
catch me in my difference
I
P J
I
V E R T I G O O F T H E P R O S C E N I U M / 9 7
9 8 \ P O E M S
from I N S T A L L A T I O N S
PASSAGE
nonetheless if we displace
the sense of life
the universe in thoughts
common laws and legitimate endeavors
nonetheless I lived there revives
dreams, and in the extreme immediacy
of sun and irksome things
in the thresholds extreme immediacy
we will live mobile
ET ERNI T Y
all forms of eternity have been
invented precisely hot or unbearable
ultimate monologue, intimate thirst
at point-blank range eternity settles
in our beds, is challenged aloud
in our narratives
eternity permeates life
the silent part of delirium
* Roland Barthes
I N S T A L L A T I O N S / 9 9
T ABOO
in every corner where talk takes place
Imcareful not
to stammer into forbidden meanings
to hiccup and paralyze in grafti
I take care
when I dreamwith my tongue
to take morality by surprise
in the intact part of desire
COL OR SEPARAT I ON
humanity is fragile more or less
peut-tre profane with jugular tension
in the documented site of words
and if my eyes struggle so
in public places and in the sun
its because the indestructible this* of hope
absorbs me so partial
MARGI N
I cant hold still
lifes too thick
so lucid, oiled smooth
with nights and narratives
I slip into the margin
cortex still ardent, taken up
with vascularity and journey
I explore the subject of docility
T ONGUE
because it is with the mouth
speech is an ultimate machination
around the belly
a ux of tenderness and fear
that makes unfathomable the verb to be
recto verso speech licks all
1 0 0 \ P O E M S
SHADOW
a beautiful subjectivity that doesnt broach
lucidity
all bodies pronounce shadow
avid for images
and those days we inhabit the same universe
impregnable passions still exist
that leave us dreaming my life
at arms length
I NST AL L AT I ON
every morning I take an interest in life
huge detours and proofs
the tail ends of century at the heart of language
icons, silks, often manuscripts
the odd-numbered body of women
great quakes
visible fromafar
I settle into my bodys installation
so as to be able to respond
when a woman gives me a sign
I N S T A L L A T I O N S / 1 0 1
CONT EMPORARY
where it hurts in life
by successive strokes
its not death
but mobility of light
our gift for aggravating beauty
T YMPANUM
sibilant tongue
close up, life wants
amplies
slimseconds
the threaded sound of desire
your shoulder brushes against
a roof
_______________________ the heart is vast
noon, ontology
1 0 2 \ P O E M S
GENERAT I ON
both hands in the conversation
I commute between asides
crash of styles
intervals between values
I wager between generations
lucidity, other references
the Big Bang of memory
suddenly women visible
speaking is never too real
MORES
the means we take so ne
to circumvent death
not forgetting
the violet estrangement of our eyes
to link conversation and move
the head in concerted shortcuts
synthesis of a way through
I amphysically used to existence
I N S T A L L A T I O N S / 1 0 3
DOWNT OWN
you say there is as if living were for sale
all around the sun
parking lots that embalmfatality
houses full of washbasins and people
by heart, there are words we forget
by heart culture fear
to say the earth is vast is
old warrior reex
SWEEP
for with this life, I tell myself
eye
urgency, emotions <junction
superimposition
_____________
planets / faces
it passes impeccable with speed
carries it all off, odors, numbers
without sorting
smiles, pangs, the absolute
eyes glued to the poem
I study the light thats saved
1 0 4 \ P O E M S
ENCORE
its never enough
each time
you roll hope around in your mouth
to appease too many ideas their opposite lit
a taste for curves and for everywhere at once
with the option of crying out
should death and utopia start
to collide
GEST URE
I dont know the how
the rst howl of thoughts when
they graft on to simple gestures
somehow as if there were a link between
the intent to move and a way of thinking
without too much grief, the sensual voice
and all the fullness of a science of the body
I N S T A L L A T I O N S / 1 0 5
1 0 6 \ P O E M S
RAI
your arms
white epoch
beyond I
vacillate
time moves
to the touch
linking
the long-said
of the real
atom, plinth
and the state of life
all ondulate, waves
I
E M & R M
I
Both poemand translation have been revised since they originally appeared in The
Massachusetts Reviewin 1990. The newversion of the poemappears in Au prsent des
veines (Trois-Rivires: Ecrits des Forges; Echternach, Luxembourg: Editions Phi,
1999).
M A T T E R H A R M O N I O U S S T I L L M A N E U V E R I N G / 1 0 7
MAT T ER HARMONI OUS ST I L L MANEUV ERI NG
I assume that day breaks in more than one place and because this
thought comes to me in the midst of reality and its unnameable poses,
so as to bear witness to time and languages in movement, I resort to the
thought that nothing is either too slow or too fleeting for the universe
I knowthat all has not been said because my body has settled into this
thought with a certain happiness and because amid the inexplicable
jolt which makes of words a path, running water and so much thirst,
by linking vowels and the backside of thoughts, eyes narrowed in fas-
cination, I can draw close to death and to its opposite
at this late hour when the gaze is at its most supple and life turns and
turns again between the blue and the astonishing lawof lighted cities,
at this late hour when words grip the chest as in operas and images
await the flickering line of fever and of the future, my eyes tilted down
low upon humanity worry fromthe very root of eyes of desire
all has not been said because I know that I love absolutely in tongues
the pink shells of meaning, the assiduous structures which graft ec-
stasies and something torrential in the midst of the voice and its per-
formance, secret matter, rounder matter, matter like your sighs andstill
other liquids
1 0 8 \ P O E M S
today I knowthat the bluest structure of the sea comes close to our cells
and to untouchable suffering the way life circles three times around
our childhood without ever really touching it because we are close to
reality and matter cannot fall without warning, without leaving us
here, skin hesitating between philosophies and the dawn, half and for-
ever in torment, in the vast complication of beauty
all has not been said since the body is punctual and so many passion-
ate versions andrare gestures remain, anincredible synchrony of senses,
while thought, always poisedfor alliance, takes care to redo inthe mind
the scenery and the beautiful portraits we love to dreamas symmetri-
cal andresonant to our childhood, for there are features whichappease
us if only for an instant so as to die close to happiness hollowing out
the universe with our shoulders and with tiny imaginary lips which
labor thanklessly in the interest of life to invent the world and the cos-
mos for us as permanent like the absolute proportion of our hands
when, voice and palm, indistinctly, they caress the body and its full
present tense
M A T T E R H A R M O N I O U S S T I L L M A N E U V E R I N G / 1 0 9
* Cyprin: female sexual secretion. English word coined by Susanne de Lotbinire-
Harwood in her translation of Brossards Sous la langue (Sous la langue/Under
Tongue, 1987).
1 1 0 \ P O E M S
at this late hour I knowthat life can confirmsilence, can set fire to ap-
provals, trace circular tears and give birth to dust and I like it this way
for Ive learned between July and October to look at all the fires, to
steep myself in the strong smell of nudity, above all in the splendor of
mauves, of facades, and of strange sonnets which gesticulate in lan-
guage as we do in the night, dreaming so as not to die voiceless
all has not been said and I rush forward my skin charged with cyprin*
and with echo because I want to smile, embodied and thinking, in-
separable fromnature with its long breath; so when I look at stable ob-
jects and time turns upside down in my chest, splits open thought, elu-
cidates deathina single bound, I knowthat all has not beensaidbecause
my chest is tight
M A T T E R H A R M O N I O U S S T I L L M A N E U V E R I N G / 1 1 1
at this late hour when memory is afraid of its leaps and the nerves in
the midst of desire are overwhelmed with responses, I know that all
has not been said, I know that light when it fractures shadow revives
my respect for shadowand for light, I knowthat the life that is mine,
overflowing into the air of energy, urges me to breathe up close into
my hand long images of necessity and, of emotion, beautiful breaches
in the background of dreaming and of identity
at this late hour when naming is still a function of dreaming and of
hope, whenpoetry separates dawnandthe great beams of daylight and
when many times over women will walk away in stories, carnal and
invisible, I knowthat all has not beensaidbecause betweenurbane con-
versationandtraditionit is coldinvertigo andsometimes inthe volatile
matter of tears a strange sweat of truth settles in as if life could touch
its metaphors
I
L W
I
UL T RASOUNDS
NAVIGATINGAT NIGHT BY MEANS OF
MILKYARMS ANDIGNITERS OF SYNTAX,
I THOUGHTABOUTTHETUMBLES AND
BEAUTIFUL SOMERSAULTS THAT INCHILDHOOD
WE LOVEDTOSHARE ONTHE GRASS
1 1 2 \ P O E M S
The perspective that enters into the composition of words perturbs
every radical woman who wishes to drawnearer another woman with
a sexual act in mind. Asexual act between two women requires prose
beforehand, text long after. Asexual act between two women supposes
the encounter of the parts, called sexual, which are in fact fewin num-
ber, and constitute only a tiny area of the geography of the body. To
draw nearer a woman is one thing, with a sexual act in mind another,
which requires vast deeps within the eyes.
U L T R A S O U N D S / 1 1 3
Prose, as word given, occupies a large place between two women mu-
tually interestedinengaging ina sexual act, because she engenders nar-
ratives that allowthe multiplication of the sexual parts of both one and
the other, while respecting the singularity of each(perfume, scar, child-
hood in the urban jungle, tattoo, blank page). Prose stimulates tiny
glints of recognition deep in the eyes, glints which in turn ignite the
senses. Sense is sometimes nomadicone thenthinks that syntax zaps
into desire in search of sexual parts that in daily life are inaccessible to
the eye, or even to the imagination.
1 1 4 \ P O E M S
The truth of prose lies in the lth of cliches, its essence in a sudden
opacity that awakens our sleeping meanings. That being so, prose of-
fers its epochs like so many mirrors, scripts and generations to ease the
reading of the values and emotions that enter into the composition of
our sexual parts. It is therefore usedfor various purposes, the mainones
being to recover the memory of childhood, to observe the slowmotion,
movements and folds of feeling, and to shape the desiring self. Prose
says that nothing really dies. Prose absorbs the shadow of our tears, ab-
sorbs part of our lives, the better to offer themto us in the municence
and spareness of our rst visions.
U L T R A S O U N D S / 1 1 5
Prose, prose, here is the essential word of a happy liaison between the
abundant nature of the I and the copious imagination that enters into
the composition of the real. Beautiful liaison, to which many women
are indebted for a glimpse of the possibility that their sexual parts are
more numerous than is usually thought. Prose, prose, starting with the
ear, that sexed pearl (the ear being sensitive to a very wide variety of
sounds, it easily welcomes the most strange propositions, the most bold
words, provided they are accompanied by certain images known for
the pleasure they provoke) where the secret leaning of our assertions
takes over fromthe threadof narratives. Prose is tenacious, little comes
together without her.
1 1 6 \ P O E M S
THUS, one day in May, while sitting in a cafe in Coyoacan (Mexico), ex-
changing some casual remarks about the effects of high altitude with a
woman at the next table, the woman said me too with a shaped intention
that disturbed me there where life is so intimate that we say it is invisible
to earthly eyes. Me too, then she proceeded to unroll before me a giant
historical fresco of red-framed windows, big game, military costumes, piles
of skulls, sumptuous stairways, mirrors in which her voice against her will,
she said, always drewthe same self portrait and its syntax, the same syntax,
she said, because of this: We were walking, my daughter and I. One evening
in July, as beautiful as my mother. Dead at twenty-ve. My pain, later. Since
then I tremble easily but I paint. I love painting. Sometimes my diary. She
paused, asked the waiter for some lemon and I continued to listen: No one
writes without piling up silence. Each time a word is beautiful or a fresco,
alive in my breast, it diverts my attention to what is without memory. I am
brave as the Frida of my red and orange Mexico. We will always have a
childhood at the tips of our ngers to make us search through the vocabu-
lary. I ama woman lover of words. Me too I replied very close to her ear
and her hair, in the free zone of the spoken and a narrative that came to me
in the formof paintings, water colors and etchings, all signed by women. I
told howseveral years ago there had been a huge exhibition of the works of
Emily Carr, Marcelle Ferron, Georgia OKeeffe and Frida Kahlo. I described
in detail the light, the texture, the milkiness, the volume of the breasts, then,
at a certain point, I dont know why, I ordered a mango and prose, prose,
spoke at length of Montral, unaware that most of the words I had used could
have a sexual connotation. Me too, because prose occupies a large place
in my life, brings me nearer, I tell you, to women. Thats the way it is, theres
nothing I can do about it. I associate so many happy and unhappy events
with our bodies that to understand them, I must always call upon my imag-
ination. This seems contradictory to you, doesnt it, that to understand what
is real, I have to make use of what we call ction. But thats how it is.
U L T R A S O U N D S / 1 1 7
What about youand stories? I like themshort, but there should be no shadow
of doubt about death. We will need long stories. What about you and the-
ory? There is no theory without representation, though abstraction some-
times nourishes my decisions. So fromprose to prose we continued talking,
so well that I could now make out, in the area of her face alone, the sexed
number of character and mental traits whichnot counting the voice,
which had not ceased to trouble me since the rst words exchanged about
the lack of oxygen at high altitudesinvited me to introduce, into the com-
position of words, shapes and sounds of a nature other than narrative.
1 1 8 \ P O E M S
NAVIGATINGAT NIGHT, BY
PURE FERVOR OF AURAS
I ARRIVEDTHEREAHEADOF
THE NIGHTANDHER BAROQUE FOLDS,
THE MILKY SHAPE OF INAUDIBLETHOUGHTS
FAR OFF, FLUENT.
U L T R A S O U N D S / 1 1 9
The cerebral design that enters into the composition of words quick-
ens any radical woman who wishes to draw nearer a woman with a
very lyrical sexual act in mind. A sexual act between two very lyrical
women requires of them that their voices project, high delity, very
beloved nuances. Alyrical sexual act supposes the repeated encounter
of the parts, called lyrical, that are in truth numerous and varied, as
experience teaches us about beauty.
1 2 0 \ P O E M S
The poem does not have to carry the burden of proof that meaning,
informed by a plural usage between two women envisaging a sexual
act, leads to the steady erasure of the lie and its thrusts scattered
throughout culture and the imaginary. The poemis desirable in itself,
because it shelters a soul said to be sensitive to the light of loving bod-
ies. Without the poem, neither the one, woman, nor the other, desir-
able, would have in the depths of their eyes that expression that ignites
metaphors, that ignites pleasure andrecognition, that expressionwhere
life will, within the so-called ow of laws, take stock of its vastness.
U L T R A S O U N D S / 1 2 1
From beauty that plunges us into astonishment, it follows that a tear
or embrace that can favorably be compared with eternity will nd its
song or offer itself to thought like a linguistic resource that can trans-
formthe sexual act into an extended exploration of the cerebral design
and its complex curves.
1 2 2 \ P O E M S
Then, prose slowly reappeared like a new consignment of precious
goods. Playful prose, whirlpool of ction, labrys prose, gateway to
dreams, see howbefore my eyes you come, three times changing your
name, evoking the long struggles andshe-loves of the tangledcontours
of narratives and utopias, see howyou come, between the lines, bring-
ing the poem closer to my lips still hot from the repeated question of
urgency. Prose, seeing youso close upwalking into the afternoon, I hear
(right by my ear and hair) any radical woman wishing to draw nearer a
woman with a sexual act in mind. Ultrasounds of the sexual parts. Silent
prose, breastfed with images and landscapes, moist, pink, juicy. See
how at last silence navigates at peace between the absolute yes of the
resting body.
U L T R A S O U N D S / 1 2 3
Thus, WHILE SEATED IN A CAFE ONE DAY IN MAY, I was
working ON AN AESTHETIC ARGUMENT to justify MY
EARTHLYSHOULDERSANDmy SEXEDintentions, I COULD,
LOOKINGATHER, AVOIDCERTAINDESCRIPTIONS SUCH
AS my life, OR EVEN THAT OF THE ROOM THE TWO
WOMENWITHDREWTO. I COULD, while looking at her, IN-
VENTSHAPESTHATBRINGTOGETHERSIGHSANDques-
tion THE CRAZY IMBALANCE OF DESIREANDreality.
1 2 4 \ P O E M S
HENCEFORTH, I COULD, NAVIGATING BY DAY AND
NIGHT AMONG MILKY VOWELS AND THINKING MAT-
TER, ADMIRE LIFE PERFORMING HER TAI CHI, GREAT
LEAPS INTHEGRASS, INTHEFLUSHOFDAWNANDTHE
CORTEX
I
L N
I
U L T R A S O U N D S / 1 2 5
from M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D WA T E R
MUSEUM OF BONE AND WAT ER
I know this by the words I ammissing
my life has gone to sleep
in the contour so precise
of the tip of a long bone
though I still know how to smile
before Roman cloisters and their ossuaries
the value of I love you
1 2 6 \ P O E M S
1
cold luminous November morning
I count my words
the bone that will not counter time
fromthe other side of silence
the art of peoples and of bones entangled
my answer never differs
water a way of hiding pain
2
in Palermo the slow fall of ochre time
between my lips a threaded baroque yes I want
slow mornings procession
an armof the sea and of the future
water that grips births
against all the squadrons
water as far as the eye can see abrading silence
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 2 7
3
in Dresden a morning of station soot and museum
I stopped short at a map
index nger jabbed into destruction
welter of peoples and skulls
mass of marble and silence in the midst
no one will revive for tomorrow
to take up the conversation where it left off
4
in San Cristbal de las Casas a morning of
Black Virgin
of Coca-Cola and incense siempre
I caress an idea of life in the dust
smell of esh and silence
red everywhere seeped into fabric
by dint of images ashes of fear
amor that chases off the goats
1 2 8 \ P O E M S
5
water returns smell of glacier at my wrist
my museumlife les past
head here chest there a harrowing work
in the distance Madrid shines beneath etchings of Goya
at the bottomof a page a detail of the Cannibals kills me
in the no-noise of knowledge
water all water I want it glacial
6
morning or noon in the city I write
my head resting on humankind
and others too in repetition
on the line of the horizon as on the screen
we tear the alphabet fromdawns arms
hands, heart and muscles in the rain
detached fromreality by brilliant procedures
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 2 9
7
this morning not fretting about shade
I gather bones shells present of lavender
noble back visible far-off like bay water
all round the tongue cuts every rosebush
no one dares laugh once cleansed of it all
suspicion naturally a bone
art spies on art and my life
8
May morning Ontario Street I observe
the bone and blue of questions
brush up against territory of when I was young
a theory of vanishing in mind
in each phrase the background murmur of farewell
thus tomorrow contemplated in tears
white thighs washed in river water
1 3 0 \ P O E M S
9
silence between rosebushes ash indigo
I get used to questions to their shadow
in the bay of Palermo immediately thirst
nothing more troubled and bowed than the skull
the mouth having struggled for breath
the idea of carnage and vermilion
in my chest to the point of exhaustion
1 0
always this mad trap of perception if
with Greek voice and a bit of chalk
I touch to the quick the morning languid with dew
bits of rejoinder and paper
in another life of tragedy I move with water
tell me what you intend with
the architecture of bodies and water all down their cheeks
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 3 1
1 1
my joy in ction engages every subject
suppose Ive a body a skeleton sexed
a touch away fromintimate words and self-portrait
in Dresden a morning of soot and frost
I cross the black and the white of three postcards
the ruined facade of the womens church
unimaginable gust of wind at my back
1 2
the etchings of Goya in Madrid
crosshatch of bars convents ripple of cars
dancing in the dark at high noon
childs ngers caught between vowels
and the wool of prayer mats and luxury
simplicity of the verb
to die and its ink
1 3 2 \ P O E M S
T Y PHOON T HRUM
and it takes ight whitecaps typhoon thrum
like an elbow in the night
ray of mores
the world is swiftly dark
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 3 3
everywhere where the mouth is eccentric
its snowing: and yet this heat long
beneath the tongue, the me curls up emotion
glides ribbon of joy
harmonic eyelids
1 3 4 \ P O E M S
as the world is swiftly dark
and night turns me avid
fromeverywhere so much brushes up
that the tongue with its salt
pierces one by one the words
with silence, typhoon thrum
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 3 5
in full ight if I spread my arms
my hair slow in the oxygen
I claimthere are vast laws
beyond cities and sepultures
voice ribbon, eyes blade
1 3 6 \ P O E M S
tonight if you lean your face close
and civilization stretches out
at the end of your arms, tonight
if in full ight you catch my image
say it was fromafar
like a die in the night
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 3 7
and while my sex dreams of daybreak
engorges ecstatic epitheliums
its snowing and again proximity
I claimits the aura
or the image asymmetric
of the image in brief full ight
1 3 8 \ P O E M S
groundswell, image ceremony
my heart is agile
emotion between us
matter of laughter matter too true
and my voice that cracks
in the cold of galaxies
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 3 9
I claimI keep watch in silence
in the rose cold of galaxies
I claimthat if the eye is black
it cannot keep watch
1 4 0 \ P O E M S
everywhere where the laughing virtual mouth
of energy devours dawn disgorges its yes
she cries out as wildly as she comes
tympanum, sonorous mauve
vast laws that lick
the airs depth fromafar
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 4 1
in the morning the she glides high
and rivers beneath my skin
are long fromso many windings
savory with women and lucidity
in the morning the river surges swept away
when I touch you
face-to-face in afrmation
1 4 2 \ P O E M S
T HE T HROAT OF L EE MI L L ER
/ each time une phrase
opens with an I
she must be really young
and as we translate her
we must avoid saving never or in my view
I remember the throat of Lee Miller
one June day in Paris
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 4 3
/ often in the same phrase I return
knowing to repeat just there
where worry still craves vows entwined
and as we translate
to explain my genre I watch
the throat of Lee Miller that year
it was worth every abstraction
1 4 4 \ P O E M S
/ I often move to the same spot
a woman in love
to capture shade at the same hour
and as we translate
I breathe
the throat of Lee Miller perfection
of the image as I draw near
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 4 5
/ often in the midst of the phrase I am
breathless I observe
I can stay that way a long time without memory
and as we translate
I touch certain places I exhaust myself
the throat of Lee Miller
no trace of a kiss
1 4 6 \ P O E M S
/ above the city and the museum
huge intelligent lips signal
in a red that calls everything into question
and as we translate
I restrict myself to the top part of the work
the throat of Lee Miller around four in the afternoon
a silver-print day
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 4 7
/ I often said every day
art stretches out in our lives as two-
edged dialogue
and as we translate
I cross the Rue de lObservatoire
the throat of Lee Miller in mind
lips or bodies entangled I observe
1 4 8 \ P O E M S
/ now in the thick of winter raging red
Genevive Cadieuxs Milky Way
I dont think I suffered fromthe comparison
and as we translate
bien sr il ny a pas de rapport
the bared throat of Lee Miller
open to speculation
I
R M & E M
I
M U S E U M O F B O N E A N D W A T E R / 1 4 9
from S H A D O W: S O F T E T S O I F
I wont blurt out
if it all goes wrong, avalanches
or eternity and blue funk
I know weve dabbled
in too many horizons
mouthing the innite
patiently translated
. . . .
I havent yet said a word
about disappearance or vocabulary its too vast
and you remember solitude
it scrapes the bottomof the sea and the alphabet
that night may span the invisible
right up to the notebooks of our indocility
. . . .
and now life falls
nights on your breast
1 5 0 \ P O E M S
as civilizations stream
and word is a word
used to rub lucidity
against dawn and lombre
with no one attached
by the number of poems, I always knew
if someone was about to die
or brush dawn
with her mouth and the following day
. . . .
Life, la vie ntait pas vilaine,
It was July we were
hopelessly toiling. At night
I said yes in the grape-red darkness
of lips expanding on the present
the trembling of vowels
The air is opaque today and chiming
like symbols eroding
the world at close range in our eyes.
In the morning I count
roses, insects. And solitude.
Concealing sighs
I drown effortlessly in the urban wind
S H A D O W : S O F T E T S O I F / 1 5 1
verbal tense and your hair
Il y avait it was longing feuillage dense des origines.
a few night syllables
through leafy words
lets watch
our dreammuscles move
our eyes outstripped by nostalgia
lets watch
tears, palms and sts like thirst
the ever vague idea that living is
necessarily a plus dans le langage
. . . .
ideas of falling and labyrinths
as if at arms length
all that is was
made to shift dawn one day
reveal the animal reign
so I wake
in pocketknives and dust
I havent yet said a word about disappearance
upstreamfromall pronouns
1 5 2 \ P O E M S
life makes decisions
beneath the skin preparing
wheel of dreams and hoops
and games of math and caskets
now glaciers
the stuff
of dawn and suffering
dawn doesnt founder
with its capital letters
an elegant way of juxtaposing
smiles piping hot
and wounds if youd like any
. . . .
and if torment if what quickens
your nights of reading and irreality
si la poussire vibre sur tes doigts
lean back on shadow
in a place with blue and emptiness
there will surely be water in your eyes
modernity and fear in your clothes
. . . .
S H A D O W : S O F T E T S O I F / 1 5 3
1 5 4 \ P O E M S
it is true that we are often
together there to strip the world
determine life touch
come closer because of farewells
and untellable tragedies
softly no nothingness
just stories
heads or tails scattered
along the length of the quotidian
and creatures for there are always
creatures ready to run for us before eternity
get drunk coil up in language
creatures suspended
fromour need of sea and wave
S H A D O W : S O F T E T S O I F / 1 5 5
hold on in silence
at dawn the verb to be courses
in the veins, a heavenly body, it ies
as after love or grain of salt
on the tongue early morning, taste of immensity
it draws near
the rst dampness
come kiss me
think of the great power of water
that makes a place of us
this will have been
an idea of ight of fervor
or like a dialogue
when we drop
at the foot of words
it will have been surprising light in time unfurling
perfect sea the entire width of the alphabet and of wind
we are still narrating
bubbles of silence linger
in our questions
night falls
I
G B
I
1 5 6 \ P O E M S
N O T E B O O K O F R O S E S A N D C I V I L I Z A T I O N / 1 5 7
from N O T E B O O K O F R O S E S
A N D C I V I L I Z A T I O N
while caresses draw us close
to the source and to dawn
a foxs life you were saying
I
the color of tears at the bottom
of a ravine
the heat of summer on the earlobe
it all feeds the senses:
madonnas that stoke the fever
an old translation of Virgil
I
whatever the month or wound
the soft color of afternoons
you plunge into
la lingua la lingua and its salty murmur
I
to the dawn add i am
in the middle
bite marks and certainty:
we all need
seashells and reality
I
the tongue rarely
approaches dawn
without a sob
I
1 5 8 \ P O E M S
in a time blue and easy
when the light is slow
and ties urgent knots
with shadow and catastrophe
you say we need rain
rain and even more night
than the abyss can rein in
or the silence of people of tenderness
N O T E B O O K O F R O S E S A N D C I V I L I Z A T I O N / 1 5 9
PRECAUT I ONS
1
humid and hot
the idea of a reed.
Repeat: its night
later guess
what gives rise to the sensation
of easy languor. A void
at the level of life
2
furious words iron bar
line of light)
how to screamdogs in the midst
of a smell of burning
(of tires
of night
1 6 0 \ P O E M S
3
fromeyelash to wound
life has to lie at
dont you think
between us and the mirrors
4
humidity in the eyes
it concerns us
such an old mystery
a sky of animals
brume with signatures that wander
N O T E B O O K O F R O S E S A N D C I V I L I Z A T I O N / 1 6 1
SUGGEST I ONS HEAV Y- HEART ED
1
the idea of balancing on the tip of an I
suspended
by the feverish joys of July
or salivating before the dark
of a present lled with
whys that streamthrough thoughts
2
then give me the pleasure
of tracing words impossible to tear holes in
go back through the course of time
between dialogues dont waver
1 6 2 \ P O E M S
N O T E B O O K O F R O S E S A N D C I V I L I Z A T I O N / 1 6 3
3
repeat: memory
hold fast. The tongue
it calls
on us, on everything
curls up everywhere to feed
on silence
4
an idea of absolute
carried off in a word in a blast
of wind
ask your question
SMOOT H HORI ZON OF T HE V ERB L OV E
1
an urban image fromthe eighties
when we hung out at Chez Madame Arthur
and at the back of the room
women wrapped their arms around
nights of ink and dawn
2
calendar of murmurs
vague caresses about the planet and its water
we could have confused words
but there were doors open
confetti in the midst of darkness
gentle ways
to swoon in a corner with she who
put her tongue in my mouth
1 6 4 \ P O E M S
3
focus on yes, on the womans
eyelids
caress not silence not word
focus beyond. Hold me back
N O T E B O O K O F R O S E S A N D C I V I L I Z A T I O N / 1 6 5
RUST L I NG AND PUNCT UAT I ON
1
the world were winded
wound-up passion
unfurling under the tongue
2
a street name a shadow that oats
glued like a weekday
to the dust
old refuge: use the familiar
3
often thats happiness
say i love you or sleepless night
colors that precede
the iodine of words
torment of punctuation
1 6 6 \ P O E M S
4
turn your head to the right side
of the horizon and water
this is Montral cheek to cheek
embedding in the tongue
a scent of enigma, a link
N O T E B O O K O F R O S E S A N D C I V I L I Z A T I O N / 1 6 7
EV ERY ARDOR
1
beware of words that blur
of summer heat that unfurls
like an ocean over the species
2
thus well leave
without remembering
verbs in their time
that brought us closer
to mirrors and rapture
3
since immensity seeks
to take on another form
imagine the speed of the murmur
the noisy surging of old intentions
this great yes risen
fromthe depth of memory
1 6 8 \ P O E M S
N O T E B O O K O F R O S E S A N D C I V I L I Z A T I O N / 1 6 9
4
if the whole body is bent over
what respite if the body
kneels breaks surface
at the hour of bedsheets or ink
I T S L I V EL Y
1
fountain/fossil: wouldnt you rather
roll tomorrow
off the tip of the tongue
restart reality break day
2
its lively you might say
a color that doesnt
make sense its so real that we think
riot of genes dashing madly
in broad daylight toward the origin
3
you sleep a bit of dna in your silence
you sleep up close to the word dissect
thinking: well go
a great shout in our chests
try out our parachutes
1 7 0 \ P O E M S
SOFT L I NK 3
Its names of places, cities, climates that haunt. Characters.
Clear mornings, a ne rain that falls all day, rare images from
elsewhere and America, two natural disasters that make us
close ranks amid corpses, its quiet or violet acts, mortars, ice
cubes in glasses at cocktail hour, noise of dishes or a slight
stutter that momentarily torments, a slap, kiss, its names of
cities like Venice or Reading, Tongue and Pueblo, names of
characters Fabrice Laure or Emma. Words honed over years
and novels, words we spoke with halting breath laughing spit-
ting sucking an olive, verbs we add to the pleasure of lips, to
success, to sure death. Its words like cheek or knee and still
others further than we can see that leave us teetering on the
edge of the abyss, to stretch like cats in morning its words
that keep us up till dawn or make us ag down a cab on a
weekday night when the citys asleep before midnight and
solitude is caught like an abscess in the jaw. Its words spoken
frommemory, in envy or pride often words uttered with love
while laying our hands behind the head or pouring a glass of
port. Its words whose etymology must be sought, then pro-
jected on a wall of sound so the cries of pain and sighs of
pleasure that wander in dreams and documents lay siege to
the mysterious darkness of the heart. Its words like bay, hill,
N O T E B O O K O F R O S E S A N D C I V I L I Z A T I O N / 1 7 1
wadi, via, rue, strada, dispersed through the dictionary
between amboyancies and neons, burial mounds and
forests. Its words arms of the sea, ensembles of sense that
claw or soft at our chest, cold shivers rivulets and fear abrupt
in the back while we try to ssure the smooth time of the
future with trenchant quotations. Its words that swallow re
and life, who knows now if theyre Latin French Italian
Sanskrit Mandarin GalicianArab or English, if they conceal a
number an animal or old anguishes impatient to shoot up
before our very eyes like cloned shadows replete with light
and great myths.
I
R M & E M
I
1 7 2 \ P O E M S
A R D O R / 1 7 3
from A R D O R
all thirsts are hollows of light
in the pain a strong moment of origin
in the large chart of the pronouns
tell me if my death goes quickly fromone century
to the other if in time one has to forget
the orchid, to adjourn the frenzy
tell me if this appetite I have for dawn
will go and amidst the cultures
tremble like an obsession, a horizon
I
one calls noise of beauty
the sea soldered to the salt
in the innitely night
beyond all the narrations
one also calls
noise of beauty silence
its slow signature at the bottomof dawn
NAPE 9
in our thoughts here they are
slow organs of memory
indeed our imagination
split in two recaptured amidst
crowds and rst names
comes with zeal without the least erasure
all the way to the temples
to ramify the senses and the caresses
all formof kiss blended
NAPE 1 0
turbulence I also love
the kind knotted in the heat wave and the togetherness
the lowest point of respiration
our we enumerated brand new in the future
NAPE 1 2
back, ankles everything has a name
herbephemeral vertigo
everything has a name
come my tiny life
in the short lapse of the retorts
1 7 4 \ P O E M S
A R D O R / 1 7 5
go nd
a little more ink an outcome
Dice. Square of night.
Now beyond the barbed wire
come, I take you by the waist.
I
P J
I
Translators note: Words in italics were in English in the original.
1 7 6 \ P O E M S
from A F T E R T H E WO R D S
after : we are an appearance
an unknown alphabet, humanitys dead angle
a taste for drunkenness that barks that grabs
confusing everything long ago and fast not yets
after someone mrmrs
me at any time of day and of brain
I amnot truly myself only
yesterday in time or the cosmos
I
after, when the beings low will still
wants to translate
background sound overcome with life
after the lost shadow of the reeds
and of the verb vanish
the slow oxygen of the whole alphabet
after you will craminto another species
I
P J
I
D
O
C
U
M
E
N
T
S
This page intentionally left blank
P O E T I C P O L I T I C S
I have divided my presentation into two parts. The rst part has to do
with the body of writing, its motivations, its energies. The second part
has to do withthe references andvalues that surroundus andthe kinds
of linguistic reaction they call for when we disagree with them. I say
when we disagree with thembecause I dont believe that one becomes a
writer to reinforce common values or common perspectives on reality.
I would like, in this talk, to make space for questions regarding dif-
ferent rituals, different approaches, different postures that we take in
language in order to exist, fulll our needs to express, communicate,
or to challenge language itself: hoping that by playing with language
it will reveal unknown dimensions of reality. I have been writing for
more than 20 years. I have written poetry, novels, texts, essays. Today,
I amstill fascinated by the act of writing, the processes, the trouble, the
pain, and the joy that we go through in order to put in words what we
feel, what we recall vaguely but which insists on being recalled, what
we envision whether it is full-length images or enigmatic ashes run-
ning through our brain like a stormof truth.
Those who are familiar with my work will know that one of the
most recurrent words in my texts is body (corps). This word is usually ac-
companied by the words writing (criture) and text (texte). The expres-
sionLe Cortex exubrant summarizes my obsessionwithbody, text, and
writing. For me the body is a metaphor of energy, intensity, desire, plea-
1 7 9
sure, memory, and awareness. The body interests me in its circulation
of energy and the way it provides, through our senses, for a network
of associations out of which we create our mental environment, out of
which we imagine far beyond what we in fact see, feel, hear or taste.
It is throughthis networkof associations that we claimnewsensations,
that we dreambackward in accelerated or slowmotion, that we zoom
in on sexual fantasies, that we discover unexpected angles of thought.
I have always said that writing is energy taking shape in language.
Sexual, libidinal, mental, andspiritual energies give to us the irresistible
need to declare things, to make newpropositions, to look for solutions
which can unknot social patterns of violence and death, to explore un-
known territories of the mind, to search for each of our identities, to
ll the gap between real and unreal. In other words, energy motivates
us to write but it also needs to nd its motive to be able to do this. En-
ergy has to go out and has to come in. The body is its channel. But the
body claims to be more than a channel: it thinks of strategies to regu-
larize the ow of energy. The body alone cannot process all energy, it
needs language to process energy into social meaning. Among the uses
that we make of language, there is a privilegedone calledcreative writ-
ing. It is inthis sense that I say that writing is shaping gures andmean-
ings within the merry-go-round of energy that traverses us. Filtered
by language, this energy nds a rhythm, becomes a voice, transforms
itself into images and metaphors. Energy that is too low keeps you
silent, energy that is too high makes noise instead of meaningeven
though silence and noise can eventually by interpreted as an historical
momentum.
Sexual, libidinal, mental, andspiritual energies providedwitha mo-
tive or an object of desire, or both, engage us in a creative dimension.
When these energies synchronize they offer a privileged moment to a
writer. Most of the time we call this inspiration. These energies can
1 8 0 \ D O C U M E N T S
also work alone or in combination. Sexual energy produces a multi-
plicity of images and scenarios. Libidinal energy creates projects and
goals. Mental energy provides for sharpness and for abstraction. Spir-
itual energy links us to a global environment. Yet all these energies can
stagnate or make you mad if they dont meet their object of desire, or
organize themselves in such a way that they can at least dreamofor
gure outtheir object of desire.
Now let me make a distinction between the motive and the object
of desire. The motive is something that whatever the situation eter-
nally returns in the work of an artist. The motive is roots, esh and
skin. It is incontrovertible. It is inscribed in us as a rst and ultimate
memory. It is carnal knowledge. All good writers have a strong mo-
tive. The motive is most of the time hidden in the core of a work, hid-
den but recurrent as a theme. It seems to me that motive (a good rea-
son and a pattern) is a personal, existential question that makes one
endlessly repeat: why or howcome? It is a three-dimensional question
caused by a synergetic moment, this moment being either traumatic
or ecstatic. With the synergetic moment gone, we are left with this
three-dimensional question, a question to which we can only respond
with a two-dimensional answerthat is, a partial answer that obliges
us to repeat the question and to try other answers. We answer in two
dimensions because we think in a chronological way, one word at a
time, one word after the other, while the body experiences life syn-
chronously. Writing, we have to make choices, to separate things. Nam-
ing is separation, it portions out reality. Dreams are 3-dimensional but
we forget about themor cannot understand them.
As for the object of desire, it is probably always the same one me-
diated by different people we fall in love with, by books we cannot re-
cover from, by situations to which we respond passionately. For me, a
goodwriter or a goodpainter always repeats the same motive, the same
P O E T I C P O L I T I C S / 1 8 1
question, the same statement in all her or his works. Think of Kandin-
sky, Rothko, Betty Goodwin. Great artists are always driven by a mo-
tive while fairly good creators have to rely on their objects of desire: if
the object isnt there, then nothing happens but sweat.
It is well known that people give and take energy fromone another;
that blame, insult, humiliation take away energy; that praise, love, and
respect multiply energy. The principle is very simple. But it gets com-
plicated when it applies to the way men and women are positioned in
regard to languages patriarchal values. We cannot avoid questioning
this cultural eld of language, which both provides us with energy or
deprives us of it. What I call the cultural eld of language is made of
male sexual andpsychic energies transformedthroughcenturies of writ-
tenctioninto standards for imagination, frames of references, patterns
of analysis, networks of meaning, rhetorics of body and soul. Digging
in that eld can be, for a creative woman, a mental health hazard.
This second part is more personal. What I propose to discuss is a kind
of trajectory in my writing. I would like to show how my politics of
poetic formmy Poetic Politicshave been shaped within a socio-
cultural environment as well as through private life. But I would also
like to talkingeneral terms of the behaviors that we encounter inwrit-
ing while we make space for ourselves as well as for ideas that we value
and themes that we privilege.
Since in principle language belongs to everyone, we are entitled to
reappropriate it by taking the initiative to intervene when it gives the
impression of closing itself off, and when our desire clashes with com-
mon usage. Very young, I perceived language as an obstacle, as a mask,
narrow-spirited like a repetitive task of boredom and of lies. Only
poetic language found mercy in my eyes. It is in this sense that my
practice of writing became at once a practice of intervention and of
1 8 2 \ D O C U M E N T S
explorationa ludic experience. Very early I had a relationship to the
language of transgression and of subversion. I wanted strong sensa-
tions: I wanted to unmask lies, hypocrisy, and banality. I had the feel-
ing that if language was an obstacle, it was also the place where every-
thing happens, where everything is possible. That I still believe.
I have often said that I dont write to express myself but that I write
to understand reality, the way we process reality into ction, the way
we process feeling, emotion and sensation into ideas and landscapes of
thought. After all, the difference between a writer and a non-writer is
that the writer processes life through written language and by doing
so has access and gives access to unexpected, unsuspected angles of
realitywhich we commonly called ction.
What about expressions like strong sensations, transgression, subver-
sion, and ludic experience? Lets start with strong sensations and lu-
dic experience. What do these expressions oppose? For me, they op-
pose boredomand daily routine; in a word: linearity. Behind that there
is obviously a statement something like: I amnot satised with what
society offers me as a future or imposes on me in the present because
if I were to follow its directives, it would mean that I would have to
lead a boring, middlebrow, puritan life. This means that I value re-
search, intelligence, and pleasure. It also means that I cannot function
withclichs andstandardvalues that somehowseemto narrowthe pos-
sibilities of life: life of the mind as well as life of the emotions. Indeed,
our emotional and our critical spirits are more and more eroded.
To be more concrete, lets say that I started to write, in the early 60s
in a Qubec which was at a turning point of our history, a period that
we have called the quiet revolution. Yes, everything was being ques-
tioned: education as well as social, political, religious, and cultural life.
To my generation, the dreamof an independent, French, socialist, sec-
ular Qubec providedfor audacities, transgressions, anda quest for col-
P O E T I C P O L I T I C S / 1 8 3
lective identity. But underneaththese changes was essentially the ques-
tionof identity. Who were we?Who are we?We have a Canadianpass-
port but our soul and tradition are not Canadian, we speak French but
we are not French, we are North American but we are not American.
As a young person and as a young writer there were three kinds of in-
stitutions that had a sour taste to me:
First: The Catholic Church because it had a strong inuence in al-
most every eld of Qubec society and mainly because of its control on
education and sexual life (marriage, contraception, abortion, homo-
sexuality).
Second: The Canadian Confederation and all its British and Cana-
dian symbols. I resent profoundly how as French Canadian we were
despised and discriminated against byAnglo Canadian politics. I have
always made the language issue a personal thing. Today I am still
vividly hurt when someone who is living or has been living in Mon-
tral for many years addresses me in English.
Third: The literary establishment. When you write you write with
and against literature. You write out of inspiration from writers and
books, but you also write against mediocrity and the clichs the liter-
ary establishment promotes. Maybe it has been unfair to some writers
of the generationthat precededmine, but I was fedup withpoems talk-
ing about landscapes, snow, mountains, and the tormented rhetoric of
love and solitude. At the same time, I felt deeply for Qubec literature
which the generation of La Barre du Jour and Les Herbes rouges were
about to rediscover and to renew at the same time.
So all together those three realities set up for me a social and liter-
ary eld that I could oppose and later on transgress and subvert. Very
early my poetry was abstract, syntactically nonconventional; desire with
its erotic drives had a great part in it. Part of what I was writing was
consciously political, at least at the level of intention. Lets say that my
1 8 4 \ D O C U M E N T S
basic intention was to make trouble, to be a troublemaker in regard
to language but also withvalues of my ownembodiedby a writing prac-
tice that was ludic (playing with words), experimental (trying to un-
derstand processes of writing), and exploratory (searching). You see,
it brings us backto my values: exploration(whichprovides for renewal
of information and knowledge), intelligence (which provides the abil-
ity to process things), and pleasure (which provides for energy and
desire).
So from1965 to 1973, I can say that I would see myself as a poet
an avant-garde poet, a formalist poet. Being a woman was not at stake,
didnt seem to be a problem. Of course it was not a problem because
in some way I was not identifying with femininity nor with other
women, with whomI felt I had nothing to share. I could understand
and talk about alienation, oppression, domination, exploitation only
when applied to me as a Quebecer. I was a Quebecer, an intellectual,
a poet, a revolutionary. Those were my identities. They were all posi-
tive and somehowthey were valued in those years of cultural changes
and counterculture. So in some way by transgressing I was still on the
good side.
But in 1974, I became a mother and about the same time fell in love
with another woman. Suddenly, I was living the most common expe-
rience in a womans life which is motherhood and at the same time I
was living the most marginal experience in a womans life which is les-
bianism. Motherhood made life absolutely concrete (two bodies to
wash, to clean, to move, to think of ) and lesbianismmade my life ab-
solute ction in a patriarchal heterosexual world. Motherhood shaped
my solidarity withwomenandgave me a feminist consciousness as les-
bianismopened new mental space to explore.
All this to say that my body was getting new ideas, new feelings,
newemotions. Fromthen on my writing started to change. It became
P O E T I C P O L I T I C S / 1 8 5
more uid, though still abstract and still obsessed with language,
transgression, and subversion; but this time I had carnal knowledge
of what I was investing in words. My frame of references started to
change and newwords (words that I had never used) started to invest
my work: vertigo, cliff, amazon, sleep, memory, skin. I started to use
new metaphors to understand things: the spiral, the hologram, meta-
phors which would help me to drift away froma linear and binary ap-
proach. Questions started to owabout identity, imagination, history,
and more and more questions came about language and the incredi-
ble fraud I was discovering in the accumulated layers of lies told about
women through centuries of the male version of reality. Which is to
say that I also had to deal with contradictions, paradoxes, double bind-
ing, tautology in order to understand what I would call the father
knows best business. Patriarchy being a highly sophisticatedmachine,
it takes time and energy to understand how it works.
Now I would like to try to answer more precisely the questions
raised in this series of lectures on The Politics of Poetic Form. While
writing this essay, I found myself saying: It is not in the writing that
a poetic text is political, it is in the reading that it becomes political. I
knewsomething was true and wrong at the same time with this state-
ment andtherefore I decidedto divide it intwo afrmative statements,
which are:
A. It is in the writing that a text shows its politics.
B. It is in the reading that a text has a political aura.
I believe that a text gives subliminal information on how it wants
to be read. Its structure is itself a statement, no matter what the text
says. Of course, what the texts says is important but it is like body lan-
guage. Body language tells more about yourself and howyou want to
relate withsomeone thando your words. I wouldlike to point out three
aspects inwhicha text shows politics: its perspective, its themes, its style.
1 8 6 \ D O C U M E N T S
The perspective. What I call the perspective is an angle fromwhich
we orient the reading of a text before it is even read. This can be done
by quotations beginning or inserted in the text, for example fromVir-
ginia Woolf, Marx, Martin Luther King, etc. This can also be done by
dedication of a poemto someone whose name will ring a political bell.
For example, dedicating your poemto Che Guevara, to Valerie Solanas,
to Paul Rose, or evento BenJohnson. The thirdway is to title your poem
or your bookinsucha way that it will suggest some political metaphors.
For example: Chilis Bones Flowers, Clitoris at Sunset, The Color Purple
(in which we read subliminally people of color) or Give EmEnough
Rope (whichcanbe understoodgive themenoughrope to hang them-
selves or give him enough rope to do want he what). Quotations,
dedications, and titles provide for immediate references or statement.
They tell a state of mind, they point out literary, cultural, or political
networks.
Themes. There are themes that are bound to have if not ideologi-
cal at least a troubling effect: Sexuality, eroticism, homosexuality, les-
bianismsomething is always at stake with eroticismbecause it deals
with limits, morality, and the unavowable. Languagewriting about
language, pointing out howlanguage works or giving feedbackonhow
what is being read has been written can also imply politics of aware-
ness because it takes away the referential illusion of the reader.
Postures. Disqualifying symbols of authority by uncovering the lies
and the contradictions on which they have been constitutedGod,
Pope, President, Man, or little man (as in husband, lover, or father).
Valuing marginal experiencesvaluing people who are inferiorized, for
example valuing women as subjects.
Style. Shaking the syntax, breaking grammatical law, not respect-
ing punctuation, visually designing the text, using the white space, type-
setting as you choose, using rhythms to create sounds. All of these have
P O E T I C P O L I T I C S / 1 8 7
a profound effect on readers, offering a new perspective on reality
through a global formal approach as did for example the impression-
ists, the cubists, and the expressionists in painting and as did, in liter-
ature, the surrealists, le nouveauroman, the post-moderns. Among writ-
ers we can name Gertrude Stein, James Joyce, and MoniqueWittig for
The Lesbian Body.
So by changing the perspective, the themes, or the style, somehow
you deceive the conformist reader in her or his moral or aesthetic ex-
pectations and you annoy her or him by breaking the habits of read-
ing. At the same time, you provide for a newspace of emotion and you
make space for new materials to be taken into account about life and
its meaning; you also offer the non-conformist reader a space for a new
experiencetraveling through meaning while simultaneously pro-
ducing meaning.
These interventions send a message in which the poet says: I dont
agree with prevalent moral or aesthetic values. I amnot respecting the
status quo. There is more to life than what we are thought to believe,
there is more to language than what we are used to expecting.
While the statement It is in the writing that a text shows its poli-
tics repels or seduces the reader (most of the time belonging to the
dominant culture), the second statement It is in the reading that a text
becomes political calls for a process of identication fromthe reader
belonging to a minority or treated as such.
I believe that a lot of writers belonging to minorities whether sex-
ual, racial, or cultural, or writers who belong to groups who live or have
livedunder colonization, oppression, exploitation, or a dictatorship, are
bound to have a highly loaded personal memory out of which they ex-
press themselves as individuals. But inevitably their personal story con-
verges with the one of thousands who have felt and lived the same ex-
perience. Memory, identity, and solidarity are at stake when reading is
1 8 8 \ D O C U M E N T S
takenas political; just as transgression, subversion, andexplorationare
at stake when writing is taken as political.
Anyone who encounters insult and hatred because of her or his dif-
ferences from a powerful group is bound, soon or later, to echo a we
through the use of I and to drawthe line between us and them, we and
they.
WE triggers emotions based on solidarity, memory, identication,
complicity, proudness, or sadness.
THEY triggers emotions based on anger and revolt. Hatred also:
THEY cuts the relation.
YOU (in the plural vous) triggers accusations, blame, reproach. It
maintains the relation because it is a direct address. You calls for ne-
gotiation just as they calls for struggle.
We all have an I/We story and a We/They story. If you belong to a
dominant group, they is either laughable, insignicant, or used as a
scapegoat. If you belong to an oppressed group, they is targeted as en-
emy because they have proved to be a real threat or danger to your col-
lectivity or your group. As an example, I could draw a personal chart
which would read like this:
I/we writers you non-writers politically non-pertinent
I/we poets you prose writers politically non-pertinent
I/we women you men politically pertinent
I/we feminists you sexists politically pertinent
I/we lesbians you heterosexuals politically pertinent
I/we Quebecers you Canadians politically pertinent
People fromgroups who have been politically, economically, and cul-
turally silenced or censored have expectations that one of them will
speak about themand for them. Women have those expectations, fem-
inists, lesbians, Indians, blacks, Chicanos have those expectations.
Those readers want so much to hear or see things about themselves
P O E T I C P O L I T I C S / 1 8 9
that they can even overestimate the political involvement of a writer.
That is why writers from those groups are often asked the question:
Are you a political writer? tes-vous un crivain engag? A question
that embarrasses themand which they will be tempted to avoid by say-
ing that they write what they write because they are creative. Which
is true, but not as simple as it seems. For example, while writing a fem-
inist article, I questioned myself wondering who is writing my text:
the poet, the feminist, or the lesbian. I came up with this answer: The
feminist is moral, responsible, fair, humanist, has solidarity. The les-
bian is audacious, radical, takes risks, strictly focuses on women. The
creative personhas imaginationandis able to process ambivalent emo-
tion and contradictions as well as transforming anger, ecstasy, desire,
pain, and so on, into social meaning.
So altogether, I would say that ones Poetic Politics shapes itself
within the weaving movement of personal motive with energy, iden-
tity, knowledge, and the ability to process emotions, ideas, sensations
into a meaningful response to the world. As for myself, my poetic is
essentially to make space for the unthought. As a woman, I amleft with
a language that has either erased or marginalized women as subjects.
Therefore in my poetic I performwhat is necessary to make space for
womens subjectivity and plurally, to make space for a positive image
of women. This task engages me to question languagesymbolic and
imaginary, fromall angles and dimensions.
In conclusion, I would like to say that a good part of my life has
gone into writing and it probably will continue to be like that. In the
desire and the necessity to reinvent language, there is certainly an in-
tention for happiness, a utopian thrust, a serious responsibility. It is be-
cause I feel both profoundly in me that I continue my course of writ-
ing. Voyage without end, writing is what always comes back to seek
me out inorder to distance deathandstupidity, lies andviolence. Writ-
1 9 0 \ D O C U M E N T S
ing never lets me forget that if life has a meaning, somewhere it is in
what we invent with our lives, with the aura of streams of words that,
within us, formsequences of truth. There is a price for consciousness,
for transgression. Sooner or later, the body of writing pays for its un-
tamed desire of beauty and knowledge. I have always thought that the
wordbeauty is relatedto the worddesire. There are words, which, like
the body, are irreducible: To write I ama woman is full of consequences.
Coda
Poetry: For me poetry is the highest probability of desire and thought
synchronized in a meaningful voice. Poetry is a formal and semantic
intuition that is brought forth by our desire, this desire not knowing
the laws that motivate it.
Text: The text is a thoughtful reexive approach of the processes of
writing and reading. When we play the text against the poem, it is as
if we would like to tame the irrational of the poem. Atext can be writ-
tenwithout inspiration, without a story. To write a text, youonly need
a motive to trigger the pleasure of writing and to performor to ex-
plore in language.
NowI wouldlike to establishthe rapportthe connectionI have
with poetry, prose, writing, and language. This I can say now, but even
ve years ago I would have been unable to identify this rapport.
A) My rapport with poetry has to do with the voice nding its way
at the very moment of synchronization of thought and emotion. It is
the rapport of intelligence in the sense of comprehension (to take with
one self ).
B) My rapport with prose and novels resembles my rapport with re-
ality as it is in daily life. I nd prose and daily life so boring that I can
only exist in these two realities by making ruptures in the sentence or
in the discourse, by seeking surprises and discoveries, by expending
P O E T I C P O L I T I C S / 1 9 1
1 9 2 \ D O C U M E N T S
meaning. Writing prose, I needto explode the narrative, the anecdotal,
the linearity of time, the normal mumbling of characters. That is why
my novels are anti-novels that challenge traditional novels.
C) My rapport with writing has to do with desire and energy. This
rapport is essentially ludic and about exploration. The body and the
act of the eyes are mainly involved.
D) My rapport with language is a matter of perspective on patriar-
chal knowledge and on its symbolic hierarchal/dualist eld. It calls for
vision rather than for subversion. It calls for awareness, concentration,
sharpness. Vision goes beyond transgression because it brings forth new
material.
Epigraph: Line 1 is from Fluid Arguments. Lines 2 through 6 are from a Pierre Joris
translation of Vertigo of the Proscenium. Another Joris translation of this poem appears
on page 97.
1 9 3
[ U N T I T L E D ]
I like to say we and look elsewhere
make of language turbulence
catch up with me in my tradition
in the sentences duration
pleasure softly spaced out
catch up with me in my difference
Im a woman of the present fascinated by the history that enters into
the composition of the words with which each generation bears wit-
ness to its anguish, invents its hope, modies the collective tale. I am
interested in what connes each generation inside themes, metaphors,
theoretical and stylistic attitudes. I imagine the passion of the language
that is allowed to escape from this. The turbulence that cracks open
history. The desire that consumes the common places. I imagine the
interior urgency that forces the liquidation of an eras truisms. Liter-
ature is the fruit of a displacement of belonging into a belonging that
invents its own horizon. I always displace myself starting from the
words of my belonging
Today, 24 February 1998, I answer the question from where I speak,
thus: from there where I feel a strong desire to be silent. Not that I want
to be done with writing. To the contrary, I speak from a place, difcult
to designate, for sure, but from which the words would organize them-
selves in such a way that their choreography on the page gives an im-
pression of silence, of a lowering of the volume of ambiant noises, noises
that are not always depth sounds.
As others satisfy their desires with daring gestures, so do I want to
satisfy my penchant for silence with words that have a strong sensual
resonance, literary connotations, and philosophical depth.
It is said that identity as quest or self-afrmation often acts as the
engine of writing. This may be true, but it seems to me that what works
best in us is that which vibrates, moans, compares, cuts, spark(le)s in
language in a singular manner. In effect, we work well with what res-
onates in us, that is to say with what has the property of extending the
duration and/or the intensity of the value we attribute to certain
words. Around these words, with these words, we create microclimates,
sometimes called theme, style, or stance. Key words, passe-partout
words, bulldozer words starting with which we trigger tornadoes of
meaning. Turbulence takes up residence: grammar and syntax adapt
themselves.
For me, the words that carry me away, that stimulate me, are be-
fore all abstract or strongly symbolic. As I have stated repeatedly in nu-
merous essays, I tend to make a synthesis of my reality by reducing it
to its most simple expression, to a vital formula which incorporates the
essential of what, for me, is signicant in a life: desire, ardor, intensity,
speed, intelligence, honesty, lucidity. Thus, rightly or wrongly, I always
project onto the group to which I objectively belong (woman, lesbian)
qualities of creativity, rebelliousness, and passion. Similarly, the Mon-
tral I view as mine will be a desirable and exciting city. No matter
that winter lasts close to ve months, for me Montral will always be
1 9 4 \ D O C U M E N T S
a July city, a summer city with a tiny opening onto Octoberan Oc-
tober of rebellion.
It seems important for me to recall here how I marvel at that period
between 1974 and 1984 when I had to play it close to the vest, in lan-
guage, so as to exist as a female subject, that is to say I had to invent
and practice writing rituals.
As far as my sense of belonging to Qubec is concerned, I have to
say rst of all that I am part of a generation that takes it for granted
that it lives not in the province of Qubec, but in the ctive and virtual
country called Qubec. I am moved and touched by this belonging,
though this emotion has never been the core matter of my work as a
writer. What I have tried to inscribe before all into texts such as Sold-
Out (treinte-illustration), French Kiss (treinte-exploration), is the Mon-
tral of modernity, its North American energy and of course its lin-
guistic drama unfolding through memory, in the quotidian and as a
scenario engaging a future in which I is less and less an other and more
and more completely other. The Qubcois frequently use the expres-
sion nous autres (we others). It translates well this feeling of strange-
ness and ambivalence which we still experience in relation to ourselves.
It is before all in our relation to the French language that this effect of
strangeness comes to the fore.
Linguistic contexts which proceed from political contexts are car-
riers of tensions and semantic excesses which energize literature. Every
writer who is subjected to linguistic stress records those malfunctions
of meaning which enter into the composition of her mother tongue and
transforms them to her prot.
As a Qubcoise, it is certain that I am subjected to a strong linguistic
stress because the rift between the written language (reection) and the
spoken language (life, the quotidian, daily experience) is major, if one
takes into account the constant intrusion of English and of that other
[ U N T I T L E D ] / 1 9 5
language born from the forced association with English: le joual. This
linguistic stress can be seen at work in my novel French Kiss (1974). A
further stress: to inject feminine subjectivity into a language which
discredits the feminine. It is in Lamr (1977) and in my novel Picture
Theory (1982) that I have best, it seems to me, fought and survived that
struggle of/with meaning.
Since always I love to keep myself elsewhere. I love to keep myself
in the untranslatable, that is at the very limit of I exist and the poem.
I
P J
I
1 9 6 \ D O C U M E N T S
P R O C E S S O F A Y E S
I T S E N E R G Y I N P R O G R E S S
The text of this mise-en-scne was composed in French by Nicole Brossard with
excerpts from her books: Lamr (1977), Amantes (1980), La Lettre arienne
(1985), Installations (1989), Langues obscures (1992), La Nuit verte du parc
Labyrinthe (1992) and some unpublished texts. Of these, only Langues Obscures
has not been translated [but see p. 93 for translated selection]. See These Our
Mothers (1983), Lovhers (1986), and Green Night of Labyrinth Park(1992).
I
A title, a mise en scne. Progress of an energy that says yes amid the
complexity and variety of living forms. Certainly, we are never through
with the torment, with our lofty afrmations. There are always ques-
tions to warn us against what we already are, what we already know,
questions that generate narrative, feeding the back-and-forth between
reality and what, virtual, throws us back into the enigma. Yes, because
we deal in lies and changing your mind isnt easy amid the laws and
sepultures. It is in language, we will recall, that lives the hunted hand
of the I weigh my words, the tracing hand that does everything not to
cheat the juggling hand.
I say process of a yes its energy in progress. I insist on questions, al-
though my writings are marked by afrmations, encompassing global
propositions in which I never hesitated to use never, always, as though
each time rushing toward what an I desire radically could bear witness
1 9 7
to. As though I was watching not to encumber myself with the objec-
tions liable to slow down my certainty, this tenacious little point, this
motivation that, meanwhile, works its subject, its sphere of inuence,
stretches its fantasies like the many metaphors that order the succes-
sion of thoughts.
I say yes because if patriarchy can take what exists and make it not,
surely we can take what exists and make it be. Again for this we must
want her, very real in our words, this integral woman that we are, this
idea of us that, like a vital certainty, would be our natural penchant to
give meaning to who we are.
I say yes for us to lose the convulsive habit of initiating girls to the
male like a commonly practised lobotomy. In effect, I want to see the
form of women take shape in the trajectory of the species.
Yes, because we are never without worry before the opacity, al-
though others before us said that is where they drew their inspiration.
I acknowledge that writing only has meaning when applied to living
well. All writing is a sentimental subject. Others before us, fertile in
images, avowed their penchants; others, free thinkers, declared their
dissidence or decried their knowledge, but each time they were sur-
prised by a gentle breeze on their skin, it did not fail to teach them of
a pleasure that haunts long after thought has declared itself fertile. I
acknowledge, our I derealizes the world in its own interest, at the level
of the confession. Sentimental.
I say yes, I say all of it yes I know writing is memory, power of pres-
ence, and proposition. I know that to write is to make yourself exist,
like deciding what does and does not exist. I say yes because I have to
imagine the worst, that is to say that the little man wrapped in his big
m has with a single pen-mark and singular frame of mind crossed out
the existence of Women, decreed womens inferiority, and invented the
woman. I say yes because I must of course imagine what awaits us.
1 9 8 \ D O C U M E N T S
I say process because where masculine thought was able to avoid
addressing the duality of the sexes by inferiorizing the feminine gen-
der, the feminist consciousness cannot in turn consent to such a blind-
ness. I say yes, yes, I get it: while validating the existence of women
and discrediting the logic of mens imaginary constructions, the fem-
inist consciousness nds itself obligated to ask the question of differ-
ence in a series of prudent statements that, on the one hand, do not de-
humanize men and, on the other hand, do not deify women.
I say yes, we will have to agree on what in us says it is hurting. All
civilizations have subdued part of the suffering, allowing it to bloom
amid the overwhelming passions, labors, and grand temples. We have
spoken of the unconscious. Absolutely insisted on the magic of womens
arms in the midst of darkness. Often mentioned the smiles of women
passing by without nding in them subjects.
I say yes because I want to be alone like poets are when the ques-
tions follow one another like archipelagoes of meaning. Even if po-
etry forces me to look at the world, pain, and sometimes winter when
the snowakes settle on your forehead, I want only to be hurt by
beauty, too much. I say that my eyes are numerous, vigilant, in love,
and worried.
I certainly am touched by our happy gullibility amid concrete things
that turn our sphere of inuence upside-down. Others before us have
known the spectacular reconciliation of the young timbre of their voices
with the old documents where we rub shoulders with death without
too much discomfort. I am touched by the impregnable space invented
by our eyes to free us from the species.
Yes, because whatever the knots, the silence, and the vertigo with
which the verb to be is fastened to our lives, the thinking matter loves
that the idea of desire wins against all the clichs and destruction, for
in our bodies when we do the inventory of inventions, mucous mem-
P R O C E S S O F A Y E S I T S E N E R G Y I N P R O G R E S S / 1 9 9
branes, vertebrae, neurons secrete other signs to draw us closer to the
line of audacity where a thousand norths, a thousand souths meet. The
idea of desire is a supple idea, similar to the way we sometimes use the
future to draw together the time between our lips and answer for ex-
istence. I have this image in me of the extravagant suppleness of our
thoughts when they turn around us, full of seduction, to suggest or-
chids and innite numbers so that we can share the art of touch, vice
prism versa light, with an air that says: my bella-scribe listen to the ti-
gress in you, stretch out your ribbon of silk, divide our intimacy, the
sufcient fullness of our intermingled phrases.
Yes, because when the thinking matter meets our pleasure, the lan-
guage, said to be wise, suddenly panics in the sonorous splicing of the
images. So amid the sounds of breathlessness, the ancient cries, and the
trembling of our voices, so our own language, said to be young,
stretches out to meet it, sometimes to the point of falling away.
Yes, because there where it hurts in life, by successive touches, it is
not death, but the mobility of light, the gift we have for aggravating
beauty.
Yes, every morning, I take interest in life, every morning I get com-
fortable in my body so as to be able to respond when a woman gives
me a sign.
Yes, because we really should make a signicant act of presence
within the body of the language, a language, let it be said, that does
not voluntarily welcome the desiring lucidity of the woman subject.
Because language knows nothing of women, or rather, let us say it
knows nothing but the slanderous racket repeated by generations of
misogynists, phallocrats, and sexists. Yes, because language renders
women non-existent and in so doing obligates us to perform rituals of
presence that exhaust the more vulnerable among us, while on the con-
2 0 0 \ D O C U M E N T S
trary electrifying the more audacious. Yes, writing I am a woman is full
of consequences.
Yes, because multiplying the ideological anchors, forward ights,
the syntheses, feints and perspectives, always searching, a mirror, drift-
ing on a word, bumping into another, obsessed or distracted, thought
is the most modern of the language games that liberate desire.
Yes, it begins with the skin; if I want to last in utopia, all love labors
in me and lets say amazes me because of the hypotheses, source,
cyprine, at work, I love you. Yes, I succumbed to the temptation as one
enters into the circuit of gestures that assure survival, conquest, a smile,
and the fusion of ctions, come the night when eye to eye we recall the
most delightful delinquencies, a sleight of hand and before our eyes
opens the agile memory of utopian girls moving in italics or in a fresco
toward all the exits.
Yes, I take an interest in knowledge, the price to pay, for example,
if we prematurely amputate the thought of a few utopias. I take an in-
terest in all methods by which we might escape despair. Thinking has
always left me contemplative, supposing that by the simple fact of be-
ing in that state we can eliminate some mystery or black hole or lie.
Yes, because there are invisible structures in our bones that allow us to
extricate ourselves from childhood and family maneuverings. Child-
hood does not sufce when we live amid the planets and lies. Indeed,
the I perched on its anatomy, great interpreter of obscure languages,
is watchful that we not compromise our chances for salvation amid the
speaking beings, ever dispensing a bit of hope by constantly resembling
someone.
Yes, because we shall remember the voluptuous episodes, this take
me in proportion to the imagination. I am indeed moved by the vi-
vacity of the I. Its way of evoking, between my lips, a surprising else-
P R O C E S S O F A Y E S I T S E N E R G Y I N P R O G R E S S / 2 0 1
where. I like a well-documented I, capable of such perfect silence and
laughter that we allow ourselves to be touched all over.
Yes, process, because the thought of eternity comes easily when we
caress a woman. When vowels acquire an unusual texture, rebelling
on the tongue, ooding the imaginary like an I think amid caresses
and pleasure.
Yes, because without respite I hear this distinct pronunciation, the
sonorous form of the desire of her. In the vowels double, I hear an an-
terior and virtual body, blanks of madness. I keep the balance between
the sounds. Yes, I write up close to what I write. It is always the same
words, great objects of speech, light, night, or silence, the same birds
in the afternoon, another paragraph on this side of words, the answer
that escapes when I take a breath. Yes, death has no sex but an I, yes,
our body alleges that our body breathes easily in the unreal.
Yes, because with every generation the poem modies the level of
desire, the irritability of our eyes amid the comparisons, I mean to say
between the eyelids, I mean to say that this is where I remember the
best, nothing intimate, only fteen minutes, in French, I mean to say,
without description, only with my eyes, without mistaking the fruit
for my many pens, without counting the number of bodies.
Yes, because there are sensations that, like music when it touches
bottom, our stomach and eyes in full imagery carry us beyond the sad-
ness and debris that I repeat deep inside myself.
Yes, because there where life is an idea that brings us closer to si-
lence, our pain is invalid.
It is certain that I am moved by this distress that culminates in full
civilization, full moon night, when our replies move, doors sleeping in
a vast world, when everything incites us to abandon our incompatible
smiles amid the sighs and devices.
I agree, each time we use simple words to try and renew our ties to
2 0 2 \ D O C U M E N T S
the inhabited body that connects us to the species. I agree, speaking
quite simply inames.
Yes, because the company of thinking and playful women, the com-
pany of lucid and desiring women resonates with that part of me that
does not give in. Yes, working a poem excites me like nudity does, or
a long slow dance with a woman, a beautiful set backdropping con-
sciousness.
Yes, process because whoever writes must imagine the imaginary
has already gone through it, in her city and her language, and fully wept
her hope at the end of sentences. Mens bodies need tears because, for
centuries, they have thought very hard while drying up the lives of
women. Womens bodies conserve tears even after death. Lesbian
cyprine continues to sing long after death, approving the ecstasies and
their conguration in the universe. Life does not pass through neutral
gender. At the far side of great elds of interlaced signiers and sig-
nieds, each generation marks the horizon, eyes lled with tears, arms
lled with myths.
Yes, because each time an image relays desire, this image, with un-
expected vigor, gets the drift of meanings. This is how, unconsciously,
images penetrate the solid matter of our ideas.
Process, yes, because reality is not enough, because beauty is de-
manding, because sensations are multiple, because placing a lot of one-
self in language does not explain the patriarchal horror, does not ex-
plain the composition of my subjectivity. I write, mobilized by the
primary matter of desire. Word matter, when it is too cold or too soft
or so crazy that our thoughts have difculty containing it, this matter
that is eternally contemporary with our joys and mobilized bodies, stirs,
breathes, slices us to the bone, then sutures in wells and whirlpools of
amazement. I exist in written language because that is where I decide
the thoughts that regulate the questions and the answers I give to re-
P R O C E S S O F A Y E S I T S E N E R G Y I N P R O G R E S S / 2 0 3
ality. I do not want to repeat what I already know of language. Store-
house of illusions, obsessions, passion, anger, and whatever else that re-
quires us to transpose reality.
Yes, because a lesbian who does not re-invent the world is a lesbian
in the process of disappearing.
Process again: can a woman crying out in pain hear the cry of an-
other woman at the same time? The cry of one woman and another
and the cry of another woman, do they get confused in space and time,
the great cry of the rebel (rebelle) and the long cry of the subjected, do
they become confused to the point that we believe we are hearing one
immense and long cry of terror?
Yes, I hesitate to gorge the I with hope. I hesitate to keep too close
an eye on it. In the middle of civilization, nothing forces us to declare
our anguish. I respect muses, their inimitable labor between the
af-rmations and the burning negations. Well have to agree on our
irreproachable hopes. There still exist impregnable passions that allow
us to ponder my life at the end of my arms.
Yes, because I would like to heal the sense in the universe around
one woman and around many. Yes, it is close to the word of honor that
desire can render speakable our comparison between the ocean and our
intentions for happiness. I take an interest in knowledge because too
much life escapes us when we exercise our capacity for joy.
Yes, I watch the ways we suffer in the spectacle of subjectivities, be-
tween our eyes tangled in glory and debris, I watch the ways we suf-
fer embed themselves in culture, stubborn-worded lionesses. I watch
the ways our sufferings invent, exible and opulent, our poorly pro-
tected eyes.
Yes, every woman whom I can resemble, when coming into contact
with air, has formal lips and our face is interested in happiness.
2 0 4 \ D O C U M E N T S
Yes, I write because part of life passes by unnoticed. Literature is
used for that: bringing ourselves closer truly always to a woman.
Yes, because beauty is an optimal passion. Speaking of literature is
necessary, intonation of the voice, mirror of the multiple. I involve my-
self always and several times in a single poem; I am not afraid of be-
ing as woman changed lesbian.
Yes, because suffering, like life, circles our childhood three times
without ever really touching it, because we are close to reality, and be-
cause matter cannot fall without warning, leaving us there, our skin
hesitant between philosophies and dawn, half way, forever in torment,
in the vast complication of beauty.
I concede that the planet is a great enigma in our voices that per-
sist, modern, between the anguish and the cat calls. We will have to
agree on the nobility of torment. On the way, I will describe the grand
gestures of seduction that I inevitably traces when it ies away with-
out permission, raising our eyelids each time, golden delirium. I would
say process, I would say that I would say that nothing is too slow, or
too brief, for the universe, I would say that naming is still a function
of dreaming and of hope.
I
A - M W
I
P R O C E S S O F A Y E S I T S E N E R G Y I N P R O G R E S S / 2 0 5
WH Y D O Y O U WR I T E I N F R E N C H ?
This essay was read in April 2000 at a conference organized by the Department
of French and the Center for French and Francophone Studies at Columbia Uni-
versity in New York. The Chosen Tongue: Language and Construction of the
Self in French and Francophone Literature featured roundtables on the subject
of French language and literature. Brossard participated in a roundtable entitled
Pourquoi crivez-vous en franais? moderated by Maryse Cond. The other
panelists were Mongo Beti, Raphal Conant, Nancy Huston, Vclav Jamek,
Daniel Maximin, and Abdourahman Weberi. As the only panelist from Qubec,
Brossard addresses the challenges of having been born a francophone in North
America for whom French both is and is not her mother tongue. As a feminist,
Brossard speaks of the need to escape the misogynist conventions perpetuated by
all languages.
I
All the love we can have for a language will never be
ideological.
France Thoret, Entre raison et draison
To tell you the truth, I have never asked myself that question. Belonging
to the only group of francophones issuing from the French colonies
who can really claim an infamous Gallic ancestry, being part of a
people for whom the French language is an obsession, a favorite pas-
time, a source of anguish and pride, having inebriated myself very early
2 0 6
on with French literature as though it were mine in hopes of one day,
to paraphrase France Thoret, talking like we write, it seems to be com-
pletely honest if a bit simplistic to answer todays question by saying
that I write in French because French is my mothertongue.
This in spite of the fact that the language spoken around me
throughout my childhood was imbibed with English words as though
to force us to position ourselves within the dailiness of North-Ameri-
can reality. Here a char with son windshield, son bumper, ses tires; here a
bar with its oor bien shin, ses waitresses, ses hot-dog toasts, ses beans,
ses smoke meats, ses sundaes. Here, a seventeenth-century pronuncia-
tion with our mo pis to against which my mother warned me, here
many curse words, church words, where anger, pleasure, appreciation,
amazement, and deception are all expressed by the name of God in one
form or another. The superlative is a curse, each emotion has its curse.
That said, I think a mothertongue is oral and that written language
holds nothing maternal. In this sense, French is not my mothertongue.
While a mothertongue and reality ow together, gasping, full of holes,
stammering, with dangerous liaisons and surprising constructions,
written language is initiation, lesson, mistake, and castigation, a taught
language with its rules to obey and its exceptions, a deliberate and con-
formist language strong in gender discrimination and outlawed mean-
ings, a language of great taboos and a selective memory. The vivacity
and vitality of written language nally depends on the adventurous
ones, the dreamers, the audacious, and the amazons who take the time
to write a book or to live a lifetime in the form of a book.
So I write and, while I admit that for me the French language is
nobly aggravating, it is also madly pleasurable, because it puts at my
disposal dazzling delirium, exemplary transgressions, and honorable
delusions of grandeur. Written French is very obviously the language
of Louise Lab, Molire, Madame de Clves, Marcel Proust, Jean
W H Y D O Y O U W R I T E I N F R E N C H ? / 2 0 7
Genet, Colette, Camus, Monique Wittig, Beckett, Nathalie Sarraute,
Cioran, Eugne Ionesco, Romain Gary, Nancy Huston, Anne Hbert,
Rjean Ducharme, and of Michel Tremblay; of Maryse Cond, Raphal
Conant, and Patrick Chamoiseau. But it is also the language of Alfred
Jarry, Antonin Artaud, Claude Gauvreau, and Raymond Queneau. Its
a nit-picking, picnicking language. Its all so beautiful and complicated,
I can also say I write in French because of the joy and pleasure of read-
ing Laurence Sterne, Lewis Carroll, James Joyce, and Gertrude Stein
in translation.
From our very rst written words, we learn to exist differently. To
play. To polish. To perfect our joys and our misfortunes, to displace the
horizon. And above all, we try to have a pure heart about words as we
examine them under every angle: in front, behind, a lado de, dessous,
dessous, and over the shadows.
If there are childhood faces furrowing the mothertongue and keep-
ing us emotionally enraptured, there are others that, working in writ-
ten language, ignite the passion for elsewhere, risk, and the unsaid. De-
spite having nothing to do with one another, written language burns
to appease the needs of mothertongue, and childhood memories almost
always make for touching books. For my part, I have only rarely used
my mothertongue to write, maybe in a novel that came out in 1974,
called French Kiss. A novel whose story (which has nothing to do with
childhood) unfolds through word play crossing Montral, Sherbrooke
Street, with time to stop for a lingering kiss where the tongues, lled
with stories and a future, happily intermingle. As for the rest of my
writing, I write French, I mean to say with the verb to be and some
surrounding words which, in my case, try to escape from the conven-
tional, the everyday, and quite obviously from a grammar that can in
one fell swoop make any trace of the thinking female and the femi-
nine disappear.
2 0 8 \ D O C U M E N T S
But is the question not how the French language, in its literary form,
inects my vision of the world and my attitude towards life, love, death,
reality, and ction? Summarily, toward which ideas, which ethic, am
I oriented by the French language, in whose arms does she push me,
about what does she want me to think? Before which beauty does she
want me to pause? Does she make me more rational and logical than
I would be without her, more friendly, more arrogant? Does she in-
cline me to uselessly turning pirouettes and somersaults, does she draw
me to the hidden-phrase, mirror-phase of armchair psychoanalysis?
The dear French language who always travels by train and lingers on
the terrace all day long, does she have what it takes to stay in gear
through the daily grind across the Americas, from sea to sea, is she
equipped in verve and verb to translate the depths of womens thoughts
on life, Man, and the little boys he transforms into soldiers who have
remained remarkably identical for centuries? In fact, I have long asked
myself whether the French language had what it takes to venture into
Qubecs great north, to pick blueberries and observe the moose on the
lakeshores, to transform the collectively repressed into the lucid and
beautifully risked, to surf for a time on the idea that we may not die
after all, to go out all night and blow off steam before stopping dead
in your tracks at the idea that yes after all we will disappear one day.
I belong to a generation that has had its doubts about what the French
language could do for us, specically if she would allow us to enter into
what in French we called modernity, while anglophones were already
postmodern. Could we, in proper French, enter into a contemporary
world where space and time would be completely modied, where
speed would fracture memory and identity, where strong sensations
would replace the emotion that requires a real book-slowness to be
born? Could we, in proper French, invent it, remake it, desire it, start
W H Y D O Y O U W R I T E I N F R E N C H ? / 2 0 9
2 1 0 \ D O C U M E N T S
it over, and release this new world of genetic modication, the virtual,
and the internet? Good old French, speak to me of science and ethics,
speak to me of women in Algeria, Zare, Haiti, Romania, and around
the passenger stations, speak to me of Paul Celan and of Walter Ben-
jamin walking in Paris, speak to me of my next book in translation.
I
A - M W
I
2 1 1
I N T E R V I E W
WI T H N I C O L E B R O S S A R D
lynne huffer
In the city, the traces, leave behind the high stakes, nicole,
without erasure.
Nicole Brossard, Lamr (These Our Mothers)
Montral, October 1993
LYNNE HUFFER: I would like to begin by talking about your work both
as a writer and a feminist. Since the 1970s you have been a part of the
feminist movement as a poet, novelist, editor, essayist. Could you put
the history of these various activities in a contemporary context?
NI COLE BROSSARD: The poet, the novelist, and the feminist are still
very active. I am still trying to answer questions about what it means
to be a contemporary subject in a civilization about to shift into an-
other dimension. Very early on, I said that I saw myself as an explorer
in language and that I was writing to comprehend the society in which
I live and the civilization to which I belong. Actually, understanding
what goes on means trying to process the double-time in which I feel
I am living: on the one hand, a historical linear time-space with familiar
patriarchal scenarios such as war, rape, and violence; on the other, a
polysemic, polymorphic, polymoral time where the speed and volume
of information erase depth of meaning, where science proposes itself
as an alternative to nature, where reality and ction manage ex aequo
to offer proof of our ordeals and of the most dreadful fantasies.
While scientic information and images of violence multiply to the
point that ethics becomes a polymorphic version of virtual behaviors,
I am still Nicole Brossard, born in Montral, with a sense of the his-
tory of Qubec and of belonging in that French part of the North Amer-
ican continent. I am still the writer who cannot let go of the idea that
literature is subversion, transgression, and vision. I am still the femi-
nist who thinks women have been and are still marginalized by the
patriarchal system. I am still the lesbian who enjoys the way desire
shapes itself among women of paroles.
The radical feminist does not wish to repeat questions and answers
she has given in her previous texts. I can only rewrite my obsession for
language and for the enigma of creative writing. I also know that de-
sire is denitely a key word for any kind of creative process and that
collective dreaming is at the core of any political involvement. I also
have in mind that keeping the focus on womens present and future is
the most challenging feat.
LH: Lets come back to the subject of writing. Could you talk about your
thoughts on ction, in its etymological sense, as a sort of ruse or lie that
transforms reality?
NB: Yes, I have often said in reality there is no ction. The diction-
ary associates ction with faking, dissimulation, and lying. Fiction has
always been opposed to reality, as being the fruit of our imagination,
as if our imagination came out of the blue. We do not construct ction
differently from the way we construct our relation to reality. In other
words, we behave (in terms of patterns) in ction the way we do in re-
ality. Fiction is not only about story-telling, it is also about the logic of
the stories each person initiates in language. By logic I mean the co-
2 1 2 \ D O C U M E N T S
herence of a universe we construct with such materials as sensations,
emotions, memory, knowledge, and beliefs which are at work subter-
raneously within our usual practice of language which is speech. Part
of that logic comes along with the literary tradition we belong to, as
well as from the language we use. Part of it is idiosyncratic. It is by be-
coming a feminist that I was forced to question the words ction and
reality. For it seemed to me that what women were experiencing was
discarded into you are making things up, ctions or lies. One can
only think about the rejection into ction of revelations about incest,
rape, and so on. Sexual practice other than plain heterosexual pene-
tration was also seen as ctive, unbelievable. On the other hand, mens
ctions about women always came out as being true. I think that for
a long time the word ction was an underground territory for what
society did not want to admit as being part of the real. Fiction is the
hidden face of the unavowable as well as of the unexplainable. I think
that by telling their reality, by bearing witness to their experiences,
women have narrowed the territory of ction, of lies about them. It
seems now that reality, science, and ction have proved equal in rep-
resenting the unbelievable. What is ction now that reality shows
those dramatizations of real stories about serial killersprovide all the
details we wanted to know about sex, violence, and injustice? What is
ction when, through technology, a grandmother can bear and give
birth to her daughters child? Nevertheless, I see ction as an open space
for desire to gure out the narrative of all those permutations we are
capable of in order to give meaning to our lives.
LH: In discussing theory and ction in The Aerial Letter, you say: It is
precisely where there is a referential illusion that theoretically women
traverse the opaque reality of language and that le sujet fabuleux we
contain becomes operative. What is the relationship between ction
and this fabular subject?
I N T E R V I E W W I T H N I C O L E B R O S S A R D / 2 1 3
NB: Le sujet fabuleux is constructed in ction because it can only be de-
veloped in the unpredictable part of the narrative, where words and
thoughts derive, blossoming with unexpected ramications, and hence-
forth initiating threads of meaning that help us to protect the positive
image each woman intuits of herself. This image is the fabular subject,
but in a patriarchal society the image is seen subliminally. Writing and
the referential illusion that it creates allow time to retrace and to focus
on the positive image. It is through Mans ction that we have become
ction; let us exit ction via ction. When you pass through written lan-
guage there is more of an opportunity to deal with the symbolic or to
make the symbolic act for you, to be able to question or to skirt around
the given course of what seems to be the universal patriarchal symbolic
order. Even by using the word fabular, something already shapes it-
self into a proposition. Things (meaning, images, a sense of truth) hap-
pen in writing that would never happen otherwise. I will probably write
all my life because the act of writing allows for an encounter with un-
usual images, unexpected thoughts; a new world is opened each time.
LH: Can you talk about the image of the hologram that is so important
to your work?
NB: I have always been interested in everything that has to do with the
eye and the gaze. When I rst saw a hologram, in New York in 1979,
I was absolutely fascinated by it. I started to read about holography and
was totally taken by some of the vocabulary relating to it: real image,
virtual image, reection, wave length, holographic brain. Also by the
fact that all the information about the image is contained in every frag-
ment of the holographic plate. I related that information to the fact that
sentences might also contain the whole of what is at stake in a novel.
For me, the hologram became the perfect metaphor to project the in-
tuitive synthesis that I had in mind of a woman who could be real, vir-
2 1 4 \ D O C U M E N T S
tual, and symbolic. By symbolic I mean she who, by being other than
the mother symbol, could alter the course of meaning, values, and pat-
terns of relationship. The hologram is tied to the idea that somehow
we women have to invent our own idea of woman in order to enjoy
being a woman and to proceed as a creative subject in language. I often
say that if each woman could project the best that she senses in herself
onto other women, we would already have accomplished a lot. I, for
example, have a tendency to project onto other women the image that
they are writers, straightforward speakers, and so forth. With the
metaphor of the hologram I was able to integrate reality (women char-
acters living in Montral, New York), ction (construction of a space
for them to exist beyond their status as characters), and utopia (pro-
jection of the desire for the female symbolic). There is utopia, celebra-
tion, and projection of a positive image of women in my books. I know
that in the United States there is a debate about essentialism. I think
feminists should be grateful to those feminist and lesbian writers who
are criticized for being essentialist. Thanks to them, the feminist
movement has developed beyond the issues of equality and equity into
an important cultural and social movement. Fiction, particularly in-
novative ction by lesbian writers and philosophers, was the site of an
overow that allowed energy to circulate among women, and that also
permitted feminist discourse to open up questions beyond the ones
raised in the nineteenth century. Without celebration, desire, radical
statements, and lesbian desire, feminism could have been left in the
hands of liberal lawyers, lobbyists, or civil servants.
LH: So youre suggesting that essentialism is a necessary risk.
NB: Absolutely. Somehow, I think there is a great deal of confusion be-
tween an essentialism that would refer to biological determinism and
essentialism as the projection of a mythic space freed of inferiorizing
I N T E R V I E W W I T H N I C O L E B R O S S A R D / 2 1 5
patriarchal images. Usually the accusers associate mythic essentialism,
which in fact is an ontological creation, with the biological one. This
confusion is not only misleading but dull.
LH: Perhaps we can come back to what you were saying about projec-
tionthis new intervention of womanand, in particular, a womans
gaze. In The Aerial Letter you say that you write with a womans gaze
upon you, and you continue: A womans gaze means: who knows
how to read.
NB: Mans gazethe fathers gazecertainly legitimates a woman
writer; it might even inspire her to excellence, as long as the writing
stays within the boundaries of patriarchal meaning. It can even allow
her to challenge literary tradition, or to write pornographic texts; she
can try, if she so choose, to compete with Henry Miller or the Marquis
de Sade. But in regard to disobedience to phallocentrism, Mans gaze
has proven to censure and silence women. It promises to retaliate.
I believe that a womans gaze is the only one that can legitimate and
challenge a woman writer to go beyond the description of her social
experience. The gaze of the other woman is vital because it induces
recognition, complicity, and possibly desire. The gaze between women
breaks the line, the uidity of a system where men and women are
trained to direct their eyes on the capital m of man because we are
thought to believe that m is humanity.
In The Textured Angle of Desire, I remark on just how difcult
it is to keep focusing on women, and that lesbian love is one of the el-
ements that allows us to maintain this focus. It is difcult to keep the
focus on women as a subject of interest, recognition, and desire because
of our marginalization. She who chooses to live on the margins (by
identifying herself as a feminist or a lesbian), but this time in full con-
trol of her choice, gives herself a chance to keep the focus.
2 1 6 \ D O C U M E N T S
For me, the loss of the gaze of the other woman is also related to the
difculty feminists have in reproducing themselves from one genera-
tion to another. In other words, losing the gaze and the focus, we al-
ways skip a generation of feminists.
LH: I nd the idea of a womans gaze very difcult to conceptualize, to
the extent that the gaze itself is part of the constitution of masculine
knowledge and desire. There is a philosophical relationship between
the gaze and comprehension, between the gaze and amorous desire.
All of this is based on the eye.
NB: It is true that the gaze itself is part of the constitution of mascu-
line knowledge and desire. If you are not a voyeur, the gaze means that
you are introducing yourself in another space which is not your own,
but which can eventually become part of your world or yourself.
The womans gaze is meaningful because it works at lling the gap
between women. What women see between them is as important as
what they see of each other and in one another. The back and forth of
the gaze between women (writer and reader) textures the space be-
tween them and to me that creates a social semantico-imaginative en-
vironment where meaning can be debated. I am amazed how difcult
it seems for women playwrights to create dialogue between women
outside of the mother-daughter relationship. Most of the time, female
characters will interact through monologues. Is it because of a femi-
nist ethic that wont allow for power relations or hierarchical roles
among women? The womans gaze acknowledges the reality of the
other woman. It makes her visible, present. I believe that it actualizes
she who has more than a story to tell. By that I mean she who can play
with me as well as with words.
LH: In concluding, I would like us to go back to an idea we started with:
the importance of the place from where one writes. InThe Aerial Letter
I N T E R V I E W W I T H N I C O L E B R O S S A R D / 2 1 7
you talk about urbanity, and, more precisely, of urban radicals, ur-
ban women who write and publish. Do you feel that there is still a
Qubcois specicity to this radical urbanity?
NB: It is strange, but I have always felt that speaking and writing about
Montral is making a statement about being a North American of
French descent. It is also a way of valuing our own literature. For a
long time in our literature, the city was associated with sin, deprava-
tion, a place where you lose your soul. So for someone of my genera-
tion, I guess it is easy to associate radicalism with the city. Somehow
the city seems to organize a metaphoric network that integrates delin-
quency, belonging, movement, excitement, and excess. In a recent text,
I was saying that I am an urban woman on the grafti side of the wall,
on the sleepless side of night, on the free side of speech, on the side of
writing where the skin is a fervent collector of dawns. I am from the
city; Ive always lived there; and I love the city and the freedom it al-
lows even if it is dangerous for women. So Im an urban radical. Its
also a metaphor for me to say: I am a girl in combat in the city of men.
LH: The fabular subject again?
NB: I guess so. Certainly one aspect of the fabular subject. Urbaine rad-
icale, sujet fabuleux, ma continent are probably noticeable as expressions
not only for the meaning they suggest but also for their linguistic fab-
ric, a semantic mix which creates its own aura of resonance. But to come
back to la lle en combat dans la cit, I guess she is the product of a choice
that I make, which is to stay in the polis in order to confront patriar-
chal meaning instead of retiring to the mythic island of the Amazons,
whose subtext to me is peace and harmony, while the subject for la cit
is the law (not harmony), the written word (not the song), and con-
stant change. The mythic island is in me, in books, and in the women
with whom I surround myself.
2 1 8 \ D O C U M E N T S
I am a woman of the here and now, fascinated with the virtual that
exists in the human species. But have we women been damaged by
mens way of ordering the world and proving their humanity? Be-
cause I want all the energy and creativity that women are capable of,
I will stay in the city so the law can be changed. Of course, there is that
possibility that the law will be changed into something else only when
we are done with the written word, which is denitely a partner to pa-
triarchy and historyhistory being the trajecstory of desire. I guess it
is difcult for me to stay on the island because I am a woman of the
written word, nonetheless aware of the metaphoric network that
comes along with it: individualism, and an endless process of desire
and hope that often comes out as an excess or a quest for the absolute.
For me, staying in the city means to be alert, vigilant, in order to dis-
criminate between propositions for a future and procedures that would
lead to catastrophe.
I think we now understand how the double constraint, the double-
bind that women experience in a sexist, misogynist, and phallocentric
society works. We now know that this double-bind immobilizes, de-
mobilizes women.
LH: What youre saying reminds me of Monique Wittigs Le Corps les-
bien (The Lesbian Body) where she also talks about this island separated
from the continent, the dark continent of the patriarchal order. But
it is not about nding the island and remaining there calmly and peace-
fully. What really remains is the tension between the island and the
continent.
NB: The tension which is desire is creative, the tension of debate is also
creative. I want womens creativity to sparkle throughout the city, in
the university, on the radio, in books, in lms.
I now feel that besides the creative tension of being une lle en com-
I N T E R V I E W W I T H N I C O L E B R O S S A R D / 2 1 9
bat dans la cit, there is also another tension, which is the one I referred
to in the beginning of this interview: a double-time where the sensa-
tion of the slowness of the act of writing and the sensation of speeding
among images (virtual, fractal, or numeric) mix in such a way that the
writer wonders with a sudden disquietude to what world she belongs;
if she is drifting away from the shore or heading back toward the idea
of a future, another shore.
I
D D
I
2 2 0 \ D O C U M E N T S
C A T A L O G O F W O R K S
W O R K S B Y N I C O L E B R O S S A R D
I N F R E N C H
POET RY
Aube la saison. Trois 12 (1965): 3768.
Mordre en sa chair. Montral: Esterel, 1966.
Lcho bouge beau. Montral: Esterel, 1968.
Suite logique. Montral: LHexagone, 1970.
Le centre blanc. Montral: Orphe, 1970. Reprint, Montral: LHexagone, Col-
lection Rtrospectives, 1978.
Mcanique jongleuse followed by Masculin grammaticale. Montral: LHexagone,
1974.
La partie pour le tout. Montral: Laurore, 1975.
Darc de cycle la drive. Drawings by Francine Simonin. Saint-Jacques-le-
Mineur: Edition de la Maison, 1979.
Amantes. Montral: Les Quinze, Collection Relles, 1980.
Double impression. Montral: LHexagone, Collection Rtrospectives, 1984.
Laviva. Montral: Nouvelle Barre du Jour, 1985.
Domaine dcriture. Montral: Nouvelle Barre du Jour, 1985.
Mauve, with Daphne Marlatt. Montral: NBJ, Collection Transformance, 1986.
Character/Jeu de lettres, with Daphne Marlatt. Montral: NBJ, Collection Trans-
formance, 1986.
Sous la Langue/Under tongue. Translated by Susanne de Lotbinire-Harwood.
Bi lingual edition, Montral: LEssentielle; Charlottetown: Gynergy Books,
1987.
Installations. Trois-Rivires: Les Ecrits des Forges; Paris: Le Castor Astral, 1989.
2 2 1
A tout regard. Montral: NBJ/Bibliothque Qubcoise, 1989.
Typhon dru. In collaboration with the artist Christine Davies. Paris: Collectif
Gnration, 1990.
La subjectivit des lionnes. Bruxelles: Larbre paroles, 1990.
Langues obscures. Montral: LHexagone, 1992.
La nuit verte du parc labyrinthe. Laval: Les Editions Trois, 1992.
Flesh, song(e) et promenade. Includes poems of Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz trans-
lated by Emile Martel. Lvres urbaines 23 (1993).
Vertige de lavant-scne. Trois Rivires: Ecrits des Forges/Orange bleue, 1997.
Typhon dru. Bilingual edition; English translation by Carolyne Bergvall. Lon-
don: Reality Press, 1997.
Amantes, suivi de Le sens apparent et de Sous la langue. Montral: LHexa-
gone, 1998.
Muse de los et de leau. Saussines, France: Cadex Editions, 1999; Saint-Hippolyte:
Editions du Norot, 2008.
Au prsent des veines. Trois-Rivires: Ecrits des Forges; Echternach, Luxembourg:
Editions Phi, 1999.
Cahier de roses et de civilisation. Trois-Rivires: Editions dArt le Sabord, 2003.
Je men vais trieste. Trois-Rivires: Ecrits des Forges; Echternach, Luxembourg:
Editions Phi; Limoges: Le Bruit des Autres, 2003.
Aprs les mots. Trois-Rivires: Ecrits des Forges, 2007.
Ardeur. Echternach, Luxembourg: Editions Phi, 2008.
Daube et de civilisation: Pomes, 19652007. Edited by Louise Dupr. Montral:
Typo, 2008.
FI CT I ON
Un livre. Montral: Edition du Jour, 1970; Les Quinze, 1980.
Sold-Out. Montral: Edition du Jour, 1973; Les Quinze, 1980.
French Kiss. Montral: Editions du Jour, 1974; Les Quinze, 1980.
Lamr ou le chapitre effrit. Montral: Les Quinze, 1977; LHexagone, Collec-
tion Typo, 1988.
Le sens apparent. Paris: Flammarion, Collection Textes, 1980.
Picture Theory. Montral: Editions Nouvelle Optique, 1982; LHexagone Col-
lection Typo, 1989.
Le dsert mauve. Montral: LHexagone, 1987; Typo, 2009.
2 2 2 \ C A T A L O G O F W O R K S
Baroque daube. Montral: LHexagone, 1995.
Hier. Montral: Qubec Amrique, Collection Mains Libres, 2001.
La capture du sombre. Montral: Lemac, 2007.
NONFI CT I ON
Journal intime. Montral: Les Herbes rouges, 1984, 1998, 2008.
La lettre arienne. Montral: Editions du Remue-Mnage, 1985, 2009.
Elle serait la premire phrase de mon prochain roman / she would be the first sentence
in my next novel. Translated by Susanne de Lotbinire-Harwood. Toronto:
Mercury Press, 1998.
Lhorizon du fragment. Trois-Pistoles: Editions Trois-Pistoles, Collection Ecrire,
2005.
PL AY
Lcrivain in La nef des sorcires. Edited with France Thoret. Montral: Quinze,
1976; ditions Collection LHexagone, Typo, 1992.
A N T H O L O G I E S E D I T E D B Y N I C O L E B R O S S A R D
The story so far 6/les stratgies du rel. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1978.
Anthologie de la posie des femmes au qubec (16771988). Coedited with Lisette
Girouard. Montral: Editions du Remue-Mnage, 1991, 2003.
Pomes dire: la francophonie, 38 potes contemporains. Paris: Castor Astral/CNDP,
2002.
Baiser vertige, Montral: Typo, 2006.
P E R I O D I C A L S ( S P E C I A L I S S U E S )
Traces. In La Nouvelle Barre du Jour, nos. 118119. November and December 1982.
Ellipse, no. 53. June 1995.
Verdure, nos. 56. February 2002.
How2 2, no. 3. Spring 2005.
V I D E O T A P E S
Les terribles vivantes, 3e partie: Nicole Brossard. Directed by Dorothy Todd H-
naut. Production Office National du Film, 1986.
C A T A L O G O F W O R K S / 2 2 3
Profession pote. Production Quartre Saisons, 1988.
Fragments of a conversation on language. Produced by Nora Alleyn. Production
O.N.F., 1990.
La nuit verte du parc labyrinthe. Produced by Anne Barth. Screenplay by Diane
Trpanire. Production La Sterne, 1993.
Thank god Im a lesbian. Produced by Dominique Cardona and Laurie Colbert,
1992.
Laura des mots. Produced and edited and with screeenplay and cinematogra-
phy by Anne Barth and Diane Trpanire. Production Vision-Top, 1996.
Stolen moments. Produced by Margaret Westcott. Production O.N.F., 1997.
Canape. Interview with Jerry Carlson. New York, CUNY-TV, 2004.
Au l des mots. Edition Panoramique, 2005 (dtheriault@teridan.com).
A U D I O T A P E S , C D - R O M
Amantes. Paris: Artalect, 1989, 2004.
Sous la langue/Under tongue. Read by Augusta Lapaix. Montral: Les Produc-
tions Annor, 1989.
Adriene Jenik. Mauve Desert (inspired by the novel Le Dsert mauve), 1997.
To order CD-ROM, contact ajenik@ucsd.edu.
W O R K S B Y N I C O L E B R O S S A R D
T R A N S L A T E D I N T O E N G L I S H
A Book. Translated by Larry Shouldice. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1976. Orig-
inally published as Un livre.
Turn of a Pang. Translated by Patricia Claxton. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1976.
Originally published as Sold-Out.
Daydream Mechanics. Translated by Larry Shouldice. Toronto: Coach House
Press, 1980. Originally published as Mcanique jongleuse.
These Our Mothers or: The Disintegrating Chapter. Translated by Barbara Godard.
Toronto: Coach House Press, 1983. Originally published as Lamr.
Lovhers. Translated by Barbara Godard. Montral: Guernica Press, 1986. Orig-
inally published as Amantes.
French Kiss. Translated by Patricia Claxton. Toronto: Coach House Press, 1986.
2 2 4 \ C A T A L O G O F W O R K S
The Aerial Letter. Translated by Marlene Wildeman. Toronto: Womens Press,
1988. Originally published as La Lettre arienne.
Surfaces of Sense. Translated by Fiona Strachan. Toronto: Coach House Press,
1989. Originally published as Le Sens apparent.
Mauve Desert. Translated by Susanne de Lotbinire-Harwood. Toronto: Coach
House Press, 1990, 2006. Originally published as Le Dsert mauve.
Picture Theory. Translated by Barbara Godard. Montral: Guernica Press, 1991,
2006; New York: Roof Press, 1991.
Baroque at Dawn. Translated by Patricia Claxton. Toronto: McClelland and
Stewart, 1997. Originally published as Baroque daube.
Installations. Translated by Ern Moure and Robert Majzels. Winnipeg: Gordon
Shillingford Publishing, 2000.
Museum of Bone and Water. Translated by Robert Majzels and Ern Moure.
Toronto: Anansi, 2003. Originally published as Muse de los et de leau.
The Blue Books. Translated by Larry Shouldice and Patricia Claxton. Toronto:
Coach House Books, 2003. Originally published as three separate books: Un
livre, Sold-Out, and French Kiss.
Shadow: Soft et Soif. Translated by Guy Bennett. Los Angeles: Seeing Eye Books,
2003.
An Intimate Journal. Translated by Barbara Godard. Toronto: Mercury Press,
2004. Originally published as Journal intime.
Yesterday, at the Hotel Clarendon. Translated by Susanne de Lotbinire-Harwood.
Toronto: Coach House Books, 2005. Originally published as Hier.
Nicole Brossard. Edited by Louise Forsyth. Toronto: Guernica Press, 2005.
Fluid Arguments. Edited by Susan Rudy. Translated by Anne-Marie Wheeler.
Toronto: Mercury Press, 2005.
Notebook of Roses and Civilization. Translated by Robert Majzels and Ern
Moure. Toronto: Coach House Books, 2007.
Fences in Breathing. Translated by Susanne de Lotbinire-Harwood. Toronto:
Coach House Books, 2007. Originally published as La capture du sombre.
Aviva. Translated by Anne-Marie Wheeler. Vancouver: Nomados Press, 2008.
Originally published as LAviva.
Mobility of Light: The Poetry of Nicole Brossard. Edited by Louise Forsyth. Wa-
terloo: Laurier Press, 2009.
C A T A L O G O F W O R K S / 2 2 5
S E L E C T E D I N T E R V I E W S A N D S T U D I E S
Andersen, Marguerite. Women of Skin and Thought. The Womens Review of
Books IV.4 (January 1987): 16.
Bayard, Caroline. Subversion Is the Order of the Day. Essays in Canadian Writ-
ing 1977: 1725.
. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Avant- postes. Toronto: Presses Por-
cpic, 1978.
. The New Poetics in Canada and Quebec. Toronto: University of Toronto
Press, 1989.
Bayard, Caroline, and Jack David. Entrevue. Les Lettres qubcoises 4 (1976):
3437.
Beaudet, Andr. Le Rcit rouge. Brche 2 (1973): 5970.
. Gyncophonie-s, suivi de Dessins, oblique, prols. La Nouvelle
Barre du Jour 88 (1980): 11330.
Beausoleil, Claude. Le motif de lidentit dans la posie qubcoise 1830-1995. Mon-
tral: Estuaire, 1996.
. Le Sens apparent/Amantes. Livres et auteurs qubcois 1980. Qubec:
Les Presses de lUniversit Laval, 1981. 9598.
Bonenfant, Joseph. Nicole Brossard, hauteur dun texte. Voix et images du pays
IX (1975): 6385.
Campeau, Francine. Nicole Brossard sur la scne utopique. La Parole mtque
5 (1988): 3233.
Conley, Katharine. The Spiral as Moebius Strip: Inside/Outside Le Dsert
mauve. Qubec Studies 18 (1994): 14958.
. Going for Baroque in the Twentieth Century: From Desnos to Bros sard.
Qubec Studies 31 (2001): 1223.
Cooke, Nathalie. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Arc 32 (1994): 5561.
Cotnoir, Louise, Lise Guevremont, Claude Beausoleil, and Hugues Corriveau.
Interview with Nicole Brossard on Picture Theory. Canadian Fiction Mag-
azine 47 (1983): 12235.
Couillard, Marie, and Francine Dumouchel. Symphonie Fministe. Gyno-
This section of the bibliography appeared in Nicole Brossard, Essays on Her Works,
edited by Louise Forsyth (Toronto: Guernica Press, 2005).
2 2 6 \ C A T A L O G O F W O R K S
C A T A L O G O F W O R K S / 2 2 7
critics/La gynocritique. Feminist Approaches to Writing by Canadian and Qub-
coises Women/Approches fministes lcriture des Canadiennes et Qubcoises.
Edited by Barbara Godard. Toronto: ECW Press, 1987. 7783.
Curran, Beverley. Je suis une Geisha devant mon ordinateur: Nicole Brossard
in Japanese Translation. Verdure 56 (2002): 6271.
Curran, Beverley, and Mitoko Hirabayashi. Translation: Making Space for a
New Narrative in Le dsert mauve. International Journal of Canadian Studies/
Revue internationale dtudes canadiennes 15 (1997): 10920.
Daurio, Beverley. Interview with Nicole Brossard. Books in Canada XX.2
(1991).
Delepoulle, Anne-Marie. La rage dcrire, ou le d fminin dans loeuvre de
Nicole Brossard. Diss. Universit de ParisVal de Marne Paris XII, 1983.
Drapeau, Rose-Berthe. Fminin singulier, pratique dcriture, Brossard, Th -
oret. Diss. Universit de Sherbrooke, 1985.
. Fminins singulier. Pratiques dcriture; Brossard, Thoret. Montral:
Triptyque, 1986.
Dumas, Eve. Les voix lumineuses de la cration. La Presse (14 August 2003).
C3.
Dupr, Louise. From Experimentation to Experience: Qubcois Modernity in
the Feminine. A Mazing Space. Writing Canadian Women Writing. Edited by
Shirley Neuman and Smaro Kamboureli. Edmonton: Longspoon/ NeWest,
1986. 35560.
. Les Stratgies Du Vertige. Trois Potes: Nicole Brossard, Madeleine Gagnon,
France Thoret. Montral: Les Editions du Remue-Mnage, 1989.
. La critique au fminin: ralit et utopie. Womens Writing and the Lit-
erary Institution/LEcriture au fminin et linstitution littraire. Claudine Potvin
and Janice Williamson. Edmonton: Research Institute for Comparative Lit-
erature, University of Alberta, 1992. 6976.
Durand, Marcella. If I am really myself : On Translation (an Interview with
Nicole Brossard). Verdure 56 (2002): 5461.
Duranleau, Irne. Le Texte moderne et Nicole Brossard. Etudes littraires 14.1
(1981): 10521.
Fiochetto, Rosanna. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Tuttestorie 1 (1990).
Fisette, Jean. Ecrire pour le plaisir. Voix et images du pays V.1 (1979): 197201.
. LEcrevisse et limpossible: glose autour de deux textes de Nicole
Brossard. Voix et images XI (1985): 6375.
Fisette, Jean, and Michel van Schendel. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Voix
et Images du Pays III.1 (1977).
Fitzgerald, Judith. Cutting to the Heart of the Matter. The Globe and Mail,
Books (26 July 2003).
Flotow, Luise von. Legacies of Quebec Womens Ecriture au fminin: Bilin-
gual Transformances, Translation Politicized, Subaltern Versions of the Text
of the Street. Revue dtudes canadiennes/Journal of Canadian Studies 30.4
(1995): 88109.
Forsyth, Louise H. The Novels of Nicole Brossard: An Active Voice. Room
of Ones Own 4.12 (1978): 3038.
. Lcriture au fminin: LEugulionne de Louky Bersianik, LAbsent
aigu de Genevive Amyot, LAmr de Nicole Brossard. Journal of Canadian
Fiction 256 (1979): 199211.
. The Radical Transformation of the Mother-Daughter Relationship
in Some Women Writers of Qubec. International Journal of Canadian Stud-
ies/Revue internationale dtudes canadiennes 7.1 (1981): 4450.
. Regards, reets, reux, rexionsexploration de loeuvre de Nicole
Brossard. La Nouvelle Barre du Jour 1189 (1982): 1125.
. Les numros spciaux de La (Nouvelle) Barre du Jour. Lieux communs,
lieux en recherche, lieu de rencontre. Fminit, Subversion, Ecriture. Edited
by Suzanne Lamy and Irne Pags. Montral: Editions du Remue-Mnage,
1983. 17584.
. Feminist Criticism as Creative Process. In the Feminine. Women and
Words/Les Femmes et les mots. Ann Dybikowski, Victoria Freeman, Daphne Mar-
latt, Barbara Pulling, and Betsy Warland. Edmonton: Longspoon Press, 1985.
8794.
. Beyond the Myths and Fictions of Traditionalism and Nationalism:
The Political in the Work of Nicole Brossard. Traditionalism, Nationalism,
and Feminism. Women Writers of Quebec. Edited by Paula Gilbert Lewis. West-
port: Greenwood Press, 1985. 15772.
. Destructuring Formal Space/Accelerating Motion in the Work of
Nicole Brossard. A Mazing Space. Writing Canadian Women Writing. Edited
2 2 8 \ C A T A L O G O F W O R K S
by Shirley Neuman and Smaro Kamboureli. Edmonton: Longspoon/
NeWest, 1986. 33444.
. Nicole Brossard and the Emergence of Feminist Literary Theory in
Qubec Since 1970. Gynocritics/La gynocritique. Feminist Approaches to Writ-
ing by Canadian and Qubcoises Women/Approches fministes lcriture des
Canadiennes et Qubcoises. Edited by Barbara Godard. Toronto: ECW Press,
1987. 21121.
. Errant and Air-Born in the City. Nicole Brossard. The Aerial Letter.
Translated by Marlene Wildeman. Toronto: The Womens Press, 1988. 926.
. Prface. Nicole Brossard. Picture Theory. 2nd ed. Montral: LHexa-
gone, 1989. 726.
. Fernand Ouellette et Nicole Brossardla posie caractre spcu-
laire: deux moments, deux critures. La Posie de lHexagone. Edited by C-
cile Cloutier and Ben Shek. Montral: LHexagone, 1990. 22332.
. Les jeux de la reprsentation dans Picture Theory de Nicole Brossard.
Mises en scne dcrivains. Assia Djebar, Nicole Brossard, Madeleine Gagnon, France
Thoret, Mireille Calle. Sainte-Foy: Les Editions Le Griffon dargile, 1993. 7386.
. La critique fministe au Qubec: une dmarche cratrice. Lautre lec-
ture. La critique au fminin et les textes qubcois. Edited by Lori Saint- Martin.
Montral: XYZ Editeur, 1994. 5158.
. Bursting Boundaries in the Vast Complication of Beauty: Transported
by Nicole Brossards Au prsent des veines. Verdure 56 (2002): 10008.
Fortier, France. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Nuit Blanche 46 (1991).
. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Nuit Blanche 69 (1997): 8487.
Gaudet, Grald. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Voix dcrivains. Montral:
Qubec- Amrique, 1985. 21525.
. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Lettres Qubcoises 57 (1990).
Godard, Barbara. La Barre du Jour: vers une potique fministe. Fminit, Sub-
version, Ecriture. Edited by Suzanne Lamy and Irne Pags. Montral: Editions
du Remue-Mnage. 1983. 195205.
. LAmr or the Exploding Chapter: Nicole Brossard at the Site of Fem-
inist Deconstruction. Atlantis 9.2 (1984): 2334.
. Mapmaking: A Survey of Feminist Criticism. Gynocritics/La gyno-
critique. Feminist Approaches to Writing by Canadian and Qubcoises Women/
C A T A L O G O F W O R K S / 2 2 9
Approches fministes lcriture des Canadiennes et Qubcoises. Edited by Bar-
bara Godard. Toronto: ECW Press, 1987. 130.
. Preface. Nicole Brossard. Picture Theory. Montral: Guernica. 1991.
711.
. Producing Visibility for Lesbians: Nicole Brossards Quantum
Physics. English Studies in Canada 21.1 (1995): 12537.
. Theorizing Feminist Discourse/Translation. Translation, History, and
Culture. Edited by Susan Bassnett and Andr Lefevre. London: Cassell, 1990.
8796.
. The Translators Diary. Culture in Transit: Translation and the Chang-
ing Identities of Quebec Literature. Edited by Sherry Simon. Montral: Vhicule
Press, 1995.
Godard, Barbara, Daphne Marlatt, Kathy Mezei, and Gail Scott. Theorizing
Fiction Theory. Collaboration in the Feminine. Writings on Women and Cul-
ture fromTessera. Toronto: Second Story Press, 1994. 5362.
Gonnard, Catherine. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Lesbia 120 (1993): 31
33.
Gould, Karen. Writing in the Feminine. Feminism and Experimental Writing in
Quebec. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press. 1990.
. Fminisme, postmodernit, esthtique de lecture: Le dsert mauve de
Nicole Brossard. Le roman qubcois depuis 1960: mthodes et analyses. Edited
by Louise Milot and Joop Lintrelt. Sainte-Foy: Presses de lUniversit Laval,
1992. 195213.
. Theorys Space in Recent Texts by Nicole Brossard and France
Thoret. Les discours fminin dans la littrature postmoderne au Qubec. Ed-
ited by Raija Koski, Kathleen Kells, and Louise Forsyth. San Francisco:
Edwin Mellen Press, 1993. 12741.
. Rewriting America: Violence, Postmodernity, and Parody in the Fic-
tion of Madeleine Monette, Nicole Brossard, and Monique LaRue. Post-
colonial Subjects, Francophone Women Writers. Edited by Mary Jean Green,
Karen Gould, Micheline Rice-Maximin, Keith L. Walker, and Jack A. Yea-
ger. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. 186209.
Guerreiro, Sandra. i write to make a presence in language. Verdure 56 (2002):
109111.
2 3 0 \ C A T A L O G O F W O R K S
Guillemette, Lucie. Reduplication, traduction et palimpseste dans loeuvre de
Nicole Brossard: linscription dun espace fminin. La Francophonie sans fron-
tire. Une Nouvelle cartographie de limaginaire au fminin. Edited by Lucie
Lequin and Catherine Mavrikakis. Paris: LHarmattan, 2001. 18195.
Havercroft, Barbara. Htrognit nonciative et renouvellement du genre: le
Journal intime de Nicole Brossard. Voix et images 64 (1996): 2237.
Holbrook, Susan. Delirium and Desire in Nicole Brossards Le dsert mauve/
Mauve Desert. Differences: A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 12 (2001):
7085.
Huffer, Lynne. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Yale French Studies 87 (1995):
11521.
. From Lesbos to Montreal: Brossards Urban Fictions. Maternal Pasts,
Feminist Futures. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. 11733.
Joubert, Ingrid. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Prairie Fire X.3 (1989).
Knutson, Susan, et al. Vers-ions Con-verse: A Sequence of Translations.
Tessera 6 (1989): 1623.
. Nicole Brossards Elegant International Play, in Canada. Theoretical
Discourse/Discours thoriques. Edited by Terry Goldie, Carmen Lambert, and
Rowland Lorimer. 1994. 187202.
. Reading Nicole Brossard. Ellipse 53 (1995): 919.
. Narrative in the Feminine. Daphne Marlatt and Nicole Brossard. Water-
loo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2000.
. Nouns, Pronouns, Verbs at eye level: Nicole Brossards Jeu de mots &
the Representation of Critical Subjectivity. Verdure 56 (2002): 11222.
Lalibert, Yves. Deux recueils de pomes o Supprimer lexcentricit cest sab-
stenir. Incidences IIIII.1 (1979): 7797.
Lamoureux, Diane. Lamre patrie. Fminisme et nationalisme dans le Qubec con-
temporain. Montral: Les Editions du Remue-Mnage, 2001.
Lamy, Suzanne. delles. Montral: LHexagone, 1979.
. Quand je lis je minvente. Montral: LHexagone, 1984.
. Les enfants uniques ns de pre et de mre inconnus. Gynocritics/La
gynocritique. Feminist Approaches to Writing by Canadian and Qubcoises
Women/Approches fministes lcriture des Canadiennes et Qubcoises. Edited
by Barbara Godard. Toronto: ECW Press, 1987. 199210.
C A T A L O G O F W O R K S / 2 3 1
Larson, Jacqueline, and Jodey Castricano. Blue PeriodThats a Story: A
Conversation with Nicole Brossard and Daphne Marlatt. West Coast Line.
A Journal of Contemporary Writing and Criticism 15 (199495): 2953.
Leblanc, J. Thorie et pratique de limage photographique. De lanalogisme mi -
m tique la codication du visuel-visible (sur Le dsert mauve de Nicole
Brossard). Texte 2122 (1997): 21949.
Lvesque, Claude. Le proche et le lointain. Garder vive lmotion. Montral:
VLB Editeur, 1994. 13037.
Lotbinire-Harwood, Susanne de. Re-Belle et indle/ The Body Bilingual. Mon-
tral: Les Editions du Remue-Mnage; Toronto: Womens Press, 1991.
McPherson, Karen S. Memory and Imagination in the Writings of Nicole
Brossard. International Journal of Canadian Studies/Revue internationale
dtudes canadiennes 22 (2000): 87102.
. Post(Modern) Script. Dune langue lautre or Speaking in Other
Tongues: Le dsert mauve. Incriminations. Guilty Women/ Telling Stories.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
Milot, Louise. Margaret Atwood et Nicole Brossard: la question de la reprsen-
tation. Voix et images XI.1 (1985): 5662.
. Nicole Brossard: une inuence coteuse. Modernit/Postmodernit du
roman contemporain. Edited by Jacques Allard and Madeleine Frdric. Mon-
tral: Les Cahiers du Dpartement dtudes littraires, UQAM, 1987. 7786.
Moisan, Clment. Gwendolyn MacEwenNicole Brossard. Posie des fron-
tires. Montral: Editions HMH, 1979. 22450.
Moyes, Lianne. Composing in the Scent of Wood and Roses. English Studies
in Canada 21.2 (1995): 20625.
. Caught in each others dreams: Nicole Brossards Portrait of Djuna
Barnes. Verdure 56 (2002): 9199.
Nepveu, Pierre. La Pense/Limpensable. Lettres Qubcoises 20 (1980): 2425.
. Trois Romans de Nicole Brossard: une histoire au prsent. Incidences
IV.23 (1980): 12938.
. Ecologie du rel. Montral: Boral, 1988. 14154.
Notar, Clea. Interview with Nicole Brossard. So to Speak. Montral: Vhicule
Press, 1988. 123143.
2 3 2 \ C A T A L O G O F W O R K S
Parker, Alice A. The Mauve Horizon of Nicole Brossard. Qubec Studies 10
(1990): 107119.
. Liminal Visions of Nicole Brossard. New York: Peter Lang, 1998.
. Myth and Memory in Nicole Brossards Baroque daube and Vertige de
lavant-scne. Doing Gender. Franco-Canadian Women Writers of the 1990s. Ed-
ited by Paula Ruth Gilbert and Roseanna Lewis Dufault. Madison, N.J.: Fair-
leigh Dickinson University Press; London and Cranbury, N.J.: Associated
University Presses, 2001. 3652.
. Surviving in Another Tongue: Nicole Brossards Installations. Verdure
56 (2002): 4453.
Paterson, Janet M. Moments postmodernes dans le roman qubcois. Ottawa:
Presses de lUniversit dOttawa, 1990. 10923.
Paul, Catherine Anne. Le processus de lcriture dun point de vue fministe:
lexemple de Nicole Brossard. Diss. Queens University, 1984.
Perry, Catherine. Limagination cratrice dans Le dsert mauve: transguration
de la ralit dans le projet fministe. Voix et images 57 (1994): 585607.
Picard, Anne-Marie. Arrts sur images: identit et altrit dans Le dsert mauve
de Nicole Brossard et Rose Mlie Rose de Marie Redonnet. Dalhousie French
Studies 32 (1995).
Pouliot, Sophie. La femme dans toute sa splendeur. Nicole Brossard, pote.
Le Devoir (14 August 2003); on dramatization of Journal intime directed by
Brigitte Haentjens.
Prieto, Ren. In-Fringe: The Role of French Criticism in the Fiction of Nicole
Brossard and Severo Sarduy. Do the Americas Have a Common Literature?
Edited by Gustavo Peres Firmat. Durham: Duke University Press, 1990.
26681.
Rosenfeld, Marthe. The Development of a Lesbian Sensibility in the Work of
Jovette Marchessault and Nicole Brossard. Traditionalism, Nationalism, and
Feminism. Women Writers of Quebec. Edited by Paula Gilbert Lewis. Westport:
Greenwood Press, 1985. 22739.
Roy, Andr. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Sortie 2 (1982).
Royer, Jean. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Ecrivains contemporains. Entre-
tiens 2. Montral: LHexagone, 1985. 2231.
C A T A L O G O F W O R K S / 2 3 3
. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Ecrivains contemporains. Entretiens 3.
Montral: LHexagone, 1985. 16369.
Russo, Linda. Sensational Intensities: Poetry and Prose: An Interview with
Nicole Brossard. Verdure 56 (2002): 12337.
Saint-Martin, Lori. Nicole Brossard et Daphne Marlatt: la fascination de lcri-
ture. Les discours fminins dans la littrature postmoderne au Qubec. Edited
by Raija Koski, Kathleen Kells, and Louise Forsyth. San Francisco: Edwin
Mellen Press, 1993. 25375.
Santa Cruz, Guadalupe. Escritoras del Quebec: Las Coordenadas ebrias. Une
lectura de Nicole Houde, Suzanne Jacob y Nicole Brossard. Nomadas 7. San-
tiago, Chile: CEGECAL (Centro de Estudios de Gnero y Cultura en
Amrica Latina, Facultad de Filosofa y Humanidades, Universidad de
Chile). 2008. 67101.
Santoro, Milna. Feminist Translation: Writing and Transmission Among
Women in Nicole Brossards Le dsert mauve and Madeleine Gagnons Lueur.
Women by Women. The Treatment of Female Characters by Women Writers of
Fiction in Quebec since 1980. Edited by Roseanna Lewis Dufault. Madison and
London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press and Associated University
Presses, 1997. 14768.
. Mothers of Invention. Feminist Authors and Experimental Fiction in
France and Quebec. Montral: McGill-Queens University Press, 2002.
Saucier, Michle. Loeil love volubilis. Les courbes dune criture. Lecture
de/avec Nicole Brossard. Diss. Universit de Sherbrooke, 1981.
Sguin, Lucie. Femmage. Les Cahiers de la Femme 1.3 (1979): 5659.
Siemerling, Winfried. The Visibility of the Utopian Form in the Work of Nicole
Brossard. Discoveries of the Other: Alterity in the Work of Leonard Cohen, Hu-
bert Aquin, Michael Ondaatje, and Nicole Brossard. Edited by Winfried Siemer-
ling. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1994. 173204.
Smart, Patricia. Tout dpend de langle de vision. Voix et images XI.2 (1985):
33033.
Strachan, Fiona. Un livre de Nicole Brossard, lecture ctive, lecture relle. Diss.
Universit de Montral, 1982.
Thompson, Dawn. Re-Inventing the World: Calculating the Con/Volutional
Integrals of Holography in Nicole Brossards Picture Theory. Writing a Pol-
2 3 4 \ C A T A L O G O F W O R K S
itics of Perception, Memory, Holography, and Women Writers in Canada. Edited
by Dawn Thompson. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000. 1642.
Vasseur, Annie Molin. Entrevue avec Nicole Brossard. Arcade 28 (1993).
Vidal, Jean-Pierre. French Kiss. Livres et auteurs qubcois 1974. Qubec: Les
Presses de lUniversit Laval, 1975. 4245.
Villemaire, Yolande. Le French Kiss de la Vnus rouge. Cul-Q 89 (1976):
6385.
Wachtel, Eleanor. Interview with Nicole Brossard. In Writers & Co. Toronto:
Alfred A. Knopf, 1996, 286301.
Weir, Lorraine. From Picture to Hologram: Nicole Brossards Grammar of
Utopia. A Mazing Space, Writing Canadian Women Writing. Edited by Shirley
Neuman and Smaro Kamboureli. Edmonton: Longspoon/ NeWest, 1986.
34552.
Williamson, Janice. Interview with Nicole Brossard. Sounding Differences. Con-
versations with Seventeen Canadian Women Writers. Edited by Janice Wil liam -
son. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1993. 5774.
C A T A L O G O F W O R K S / 2 3 5
C R E D I T S
P O E M S
After the Words: Originally published in French as Aprs les mots. Selections re-
produced by permission of Les Ecrits des Forges and the translator, Pierre
Joris.
Ardor: Originally published in French as Ardeur. Selections reproduced by per-
mission of Editions Phi and the translator, Pierre Joris.
Aviva: Originally published in French as Laviva. Selections reproduced by per-
mission of the translator, Anne-Marie Wheeler. Grateful acknowledgment
to Nomados Press for its edition of Aviva.
Daydream Mechanics: Originally published in French as Mcanique jongleuse.
Grateful acknowledgment to Coach House Books for its edition of Daydream
Mechanics and to Larry Shouldice for his English translation.
Double Impression. Originally published in French as Double impression. The se-
lection The Marginal Way reproduced by permission of LHexagone and
the translator, Jennifer Moxley.
The Echo Moves Beautiful: Originally published in French as Lcho bouge beau.
Selections reproduced by permission of LHexagone and the translator, Pierre
Joris.
Installations: Originally published in French as Installations. Selections reprinted
by permission of The Muses Co./J. Gordon Shillingford Publishing and the
translators, Robert Majzels and Ern Moure.
Logical Suite: Originally published in French as Suite logique. Selections repro-
duced by permission of LHexagone and the translator, Pierre Joris.
Lovhers: Originally published in French as Amantes. Copyright Nicole Bros -
sard; translation copyright Barbara Godard and Guernica Editions. Se-
2 3 6
lections reproduced by permission of Guernica Editions and the translator,
Barbara Godard.
Matter Harmonious Still Maneuvering: Originally published in French as La
matire heureuse manoevre encore in Au prsent des veines. A translation of a
different version of this poem was published in Massachusetts Review 31.12
(spring/summer 1990). Translation in this volume reproduced by permission
of the translator, Lise Weil.
Museum of Bone and Water: Originally published in French as Muse de los et de
leau. Poems from Museum of Bone and Water copyright 1999 Editions du
Norot and Codex Editions. English translation copyright 2003 House of
Anansi Press, Inc. Selections reproduced by permission of House of Anansi
Press, Inc., and the translators, Robert Majzels and Ern Moure.
Notebook of Roses and Civilization: Originally published in French as Cahier de
roses et de civilisation. Selections are translated by Robert Majzels and Ern
Moure (Coach House Books, 2007) and reproduced by permission.
Obscure Languages: Originally published in French as Langues obscures. Selections
reproduced by permission of LHexagone and the translator, Jennifer Moxley.
The Part for the Whole: Originally published in French as La partie pour le tout.
Selections reproduced by permission of LHexagone and the translator, Jen-
nifer Moxley.
Shadow: Soft et Soif: Originally published in French in Ardeur. Selections re-
produced by permission of the translator, Guy Bennett.
To Every Gaze: Originally published in French as tout regard. The selection
Cities by the Touch reproduced by permission of the translator, Jennifer
Moxley. The selection If Yes Seismal transcreated by Fred Wah; transcrea -
tion originally published in Absinthe 5, no. 1 (summer 1992); reproduced by
permission of the transcreator, Fred Wah.
Ultrasounds: Originally published in French as Ultra sons in La nuit verte du
parc laybyrinthe. Published in Resurgent: New Writing by Women, edited by Lou
Robinson and Camille Norton (Champaign: University of Illinois Press,
1992). Reproduced by permission of the translator, Lucille Nelson.
Vertigo of the Proscenium: Originally published in French in Vertige de lavant-
scne. Selections reproduced by permission by Les Ecrits des Forges and the
translator, Pierre Joris.
C R E D I T S / 2 3 7
The White Centre: Originally published in French as Le centre blanc. Selections
reproduced by permission of LHexagone and the translator, Barbara Godard.
D O C U M E N T S
Interview with Nicole Brossard by Lynne Huffer: Originally published in Yale
French Studies: Another Look, Another Woman: Retranslations of French Femi-
nism, no. 87. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1995. Interview
with Nicole Brossard, Montreal, October 1993, reproduced by permission of
Lynne Huffer.
Poetic Politics: Published in The Politics of Poetic Form: Poetry and Public Policy,
edited by Charles Bernstein (New York: Roof Books, 1990).
Process of a Yes Its Energy in Progress: Originally published in French as Proces-
sion dun oui qui va son nergie in Mises en scne dcrivains. Assia Djebar, Nicole
Brossard, Madeleine Gagnon, France Thoret, edited by Mireille Calle-Gruber
(Grenoble: Presses universitaire de Grenoble; Qubec: Griffon dArgile,
1993). Published in Fluid Arguments: Essays by Nicole Brossard, edited by Su-
san Rudy (Toronto: Mercury Press, 2005). Reproduced by permission of the
translator, Anne-Marie Wheeler.
[Untitled] I am a woman of the present: Published in Boundary 2 26, no. 1
(spring 1999). Reproduced by permission of the translator, Pierre Joris.
Why Do You Write in French?: Published in Fluid Arguments: Essays by Nicole
Brossard. Reproduced by permission of the translator, Anne-Marie Wheeler.
2 3 8 \ C R E D I T S
text: 10. 75/15 granjon
display: akzidenz grotesk
compositor: integrated composition systems
printer: thomson-shore, inc.