{"id":2023,"date":"2023-02-05T22:01:08","date_gmt":"2023-02-06T04:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thespectaclstg.wpengine.com\/?p=2023"},"modified":"2023-02-16T10:21:37","modified_gmt":"2023-02-16T16:21:37","slug":"four-poems-by-liliane-giraudon-trans-by-lindsay-turner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/?p=2023","title":{"rendered":"Poetry by Liliane Giraudon, trans. by Lindsay Turner"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Translated from the French<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

From <\/em>La sphinge mange cru (In English, <\/em>Sphinx, forthcoming from Litmus Press)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n

A word is a form.
She sees an onion that needs to be eaten,
shuts it into a drawer,
sticks a flower in her book and goes out.
Walking she murmurs to herself alone.
A passerby makes out not the future but fuchsias.<\/em>
It\u2019s hopeless.
That much is sure, it\u2019s hopeless and it will remain so.
You see the big confusion: between sexes
and grammatical genders.
Heroines of fava and saffron,
that symmetry reversed.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

For a while she smokes only Gitanes\u2014
so they called, in the 20th<\/sup> century,
tobacconists\u2019 dark blend.
Later on she\u2019ll prefer Celtiques, the corn paper kind.
She\u2019s constantly stubbing them out.
Then a few other brands, all long-gone now:
the blue Bastos with their golden print
on an ultramarine backdrop.
Only Gauloises remain.
For a long time all of the backdrops were irregular vegetation.
For men, meat, dead and corruptible;
for gods, the smoke of burnt bones.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

In August meticulously she copies out
each onomatopoeia she comes across
and tries hard to use it.
The word \u201cchatter\u201d meaning intense cold
is replaced by fear of (\u201cshudder\u201d).
       a.) An optic sentiment seeking its form.
       b.) Pure strategy for bolstering courage.
When no longer under the protection of Artemis,
the horses limp and the men stumble.
And the women?

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

A study of the galaxies,
elliptical or irregular spiral; she finds their likenesses
with her little bowl of milk.
The dead are heads cloaked with the night.
Representing witches requires a separate plank.
Yet the force of one bullet\u2019s recoil propels
the next bullet into the chamber.
To wash the blood from cold game
when it falls on the ground
you\u2019ll need some soap and a lot of water.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Un mot est une forme.
Regardant un oignon qui devait \u00eatre mang\u00e9 elle l\u2019enferme dans
un tiroir.
Pose une fleur dans le livre et sort.
Murmure en marchant des phrases pour elle seule.
Un passant distingue pas pour le future mais pour les fuchsias<\/em>.
C\u2019est sans rem\u00e8de.
Cela est s\u00fbr c\u2019est sans rem\u00e8de et pour longtemps.
Voyez la confusion grossi\u00e8re: celle des sexes et des genres
grammaticaux.
H\u00e9ro\u00efnes de la f\u00e8ve et du safran.
Cette sym\u00e9trie inverse.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Durant un \u00e9pisode assez long fume des Gitane (nom donn\u00e9 au
cours du XXe si\u00e8cle \u00e0 une cigarette brune fabriqu\u00e9e par la
R\u00e9gie Fran\u00e7aise des Tabacs).
Plus tard elle pr\u00e9f\u00e9ra les Celtique papier ma\u00efs.
S\u2019\u00e9teignant sans cesse.
Suivront plusieurs autres marques toutes disparues comme
les Bastos bleues \u00e0 la typographie dor\u00e9e sur fond bleu outremer.
Seules demeurent les Gitane.
Le v\u00e9g\u00e9tal irr\u00e9gulier occupe longtemps l\u2019ensemble des d\u00e9cors.
Aux hommes la viande morte et corruptible aux dieux la fum\u00e9e
des os calcin\u00e9s.

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

En ao\u00fbt elle recopie m\u00e9ticuleusement les onomatop\u00e9es qu\u2019elle
rencontre et s\u2019efforce de les employer.
La locution a glagla <\/em>d\u00e9signant un froid intense est \u00e9cart\u00e9e au
profit de la peur (les avoir a glagla).<\/em>
       a> Sentiment optique cherchant sa forme.
       b> Pure strat\u00e9gie pour s\u2019inciter au courage.
Les chevaux boitent et les hommes tr\u00e9buchent lorsqu\u2019ils ne se
mettent pas sous la protection d\u2019Art\u00e9mis.
Et les femmes?

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

\u00c9tude des galaxies.
Spirale elliptique ou irr\u00e9guli\u00e8re elle leur trouve des similitudes
avec son petit bol de lait.
Les morts sont des t\u00eates v\u00eatues de nuit.
La repr\u00e9sentation des sorci\u00e8res exige une planche s\u00e9par\u00e9e.
Pourtant la force de recul d\u2019une balle propulse la balle suivante
dans la chambre.
Pour laver le sang du gibier froid tomb\u00e9 sur le sol il faut du
savon et beaucoup d\u2019eau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n

Read the Translator\u2019s Dispatch: Lindsay Turner on Liliane Giraudon<\/a>.<\/strong>

One of experimental French writing\u2019s most powerful and undersung figures, Liliane Giraudon was born in Marseille in 1946 and continues to live and work in the city. Giraudon\u2019s (many) books have, since 1982, been primarily published by France\u2019s \u00c9ditions P.O.L. Giraudon has also been instrumental as an editor for influential reviews such as Banana Split<\/em>, Action Po\u00e9tique<\/em>, and If<\/em>; she performs and collaborates widely, including with (for example) Nanni Balestrini, Henri Deluy, Jean-Jacques Viton, and many others. Two of her books (Pallaksch, Pallaksch<\/em> and Fur<\/em>) were published in English by Sun & Moon Press in 1994 and 1995, respectively. In addition to Sphinx<\/em>, Giraudon\u2019s collection Love is Colder than the Lake<\/em> is also forthcoming in 2023, translated by Lindsay Turner and Sarah Riggs, from Nightboat Books.

Originally from northeast Tennessee, Lindsay Turner is the author of the poetry collections Songs & Ballads<\/em> (Prelude Books, 2018) and The Upstate<\/em> (University of Chicago Press, forthcoming, 2023). Her award-winning translations from the French include works of poetry and philosophy by St\u00e9phane Bouquet, Souleymane Bachir Diagne, Anne Dufourmantelle, Fr\u00e9d\u00e9ric Neyrat, Ryoko Sekiguchi, and others. She lives in Cleveland, where she is Assistant Professor in English and Creative Writing at Case Western Reserve University.

Translation Series curated by Jae Kim<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Four poems excerpted from Liliane Giraudon’s forthcoming book (in translation), Sphinx.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1969,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[66,85],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thespectacle.wustl.edu\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}