The Curved Planks

"[Bonnefoy] is a poet of small epiphanies: some long-ago summer evening when the night forgot to fall while a lone child played on the road and a distant voice kept calling him. This is the secret of his lyricism, the memory of a fragment of time touched by eternity that he cannot let go. Is this one obsession enough for a lifetime of poetry? In a few of his finest poems, Bonnefoy makes us believe that it is."—Charles Simic, The New York Review of Books

"Yves Bonnefoy is one of the rare poets in the history of literature to have sustained the highest level of artistic excellence throughout an entire lifetime—more than half a century now, and still counting. These recent poems, superbly translated by Hoyt Rogers, attest to his enduring greatness."—Paul Auster

"Yves Bonnefoy represents contemporary French poetry at its classic best: sober and yet soaring, full of invocation and desire: 'Let this world endure . . . Let this world remain.' This volume—thanks to Hoyt Rogers, Richard Howard, and the input of Bonnefoy himself—is a splendid celebration of the depths of this particular craft, whose curved planks of its prow are shaped like a mind."—Mary Ann Caw, Distinguished Professor of English, French, and Comparative Literature, the Graduate School of the City University of New York

"I have been deeply impressed, reading Hoyt Rogers's translations of Yves Bonnefoy's Les planches courbes. They are much more than English versions of these strong and delicate originals—they are re-creations that became distinct poems in our language, a true and loving homage to their source."—Alastair Reid

"The Curved Planks is the crowning achievement of a major French poet who has much to say to our troubled times: Yves Bonnefoy continues to explore the possibilities of hope, to assay the significance of the here and now, to chronicle the dual 'presence' of emptiness and plenitude. Hoyt Rogers has composed fluent, engaging translations that reveal a profound respect for the original poems—and for the man who wrote them."—John Taylor, author of Paths to Contemporary French Literature

"The first poetic associations of Bonnefoy, an octogenarian French poet often mentioned in the same breath as Paul Valry, were with the French surrealists, but he has long since been a maverick of French verse, crafting stanzas as simple as they are resonant and rooted in everything from modernism to medieval song. This sequence, composed of short series of poems that take in every form from prose to rhyme, centers, as Richard Howard notes in a baroque preface, on renewal, taking the myth of Ceres as a point of origin: 'she still/ Stops at night / Under rustling trees, / And knocks at closed doors.' Hoyt—who provides a long afterword, a translator's note and a bibliography—offers a translation that is solid and clear, and that allows for play among word and phrase senses: 'the limitless space of clashing currents, of yawning abysses, of stars.'"—Publishers Weekly



Table of Contents
Foreword by Richard Howard

LA PLUIE D'ÉTÉ
SUMMER RAIN

Les rainettes, le soir
Tree Frogs, at Evening

I. Rauques etaient les voix
At evening, the tree frogs

II. Its s'attardaient, le soir
They lingered, at evening

Une pierre
A Stone

Une pierre
A Stone

La pluie d'été
Summer Rain I. Mais le plus cher
Yet the dearest
II. Et tôt après le ciel
And soon after, the sky

Une pierre
A Stone

Une pierre
A Stone

Les chemins
The Paths
I. Chemins, ô beaux enfants
Paths, O beautiful children
II. Et vite it nous menait
And quickly he would lead us
III. Cérès aurait bien dû
Ceres, all sweat and dust

Hier, l'inachevable
Yesterday, Without End

Une pierre
A Stone

Une pierre
A Stone

Que ce monde demeure!
Let This World Endure
I. Je redresse une branche
I right a broken branch
II. Que ce monde demeure
Let this world endure
III. Que ce monde demeure!
Let this world endure
IV. Oh, que taut d'évidence
Let so pure a presence
V. Que ce monde demeure
Let this world endure
VI. Bois, disait celle qui
Drink, she said
VII. Terre, qui vint à nous
Earth, who came to us
VIII. Et encore: l'été
And again: summer will last

Une voix
A Voice
I. Tout cela, mon ami
All that, my friend
II. Et puisse être le ciel
The sky's way of being

Une pierre
A Stone

"Ye déplace du pied..."
"Among other stones..."

"Un même effacement..."
"The same effacement..."

Une pierre
A Stone

Une pierre
A Stone

"Passant, ce sont des mots..."
"Passerby, these are words ..."

"Sur la Pierre tachée..."
"On the moss-stained ..."

LA PLUIE SUR LE RAVIN
RAIN FALLS ON THE RAVINE
I. Il pleut, sur le ravin
Rain falls on the ravine
II. Pluie des matins d'été
Rain of summer mornings
III. Je me lève, je vois
I get up and see

À MÈME RIVE
TOWARD THE SAME SHORE
I. Parfois prend le miroir
Between sky and room
II. Rêver: que la beauté
Dreaming that beauty
III. Et plus tard on l'entend
And later you hear him

LA VOIX LOINTAINE
THE FARAWAY VOICE
I. Je l'écoutais, puis j'ai craint
I listened, then feared
II. Ou bien je l'entendais
Or else I was hearing her
III. Et je l'aimais comme I aime ce son
I loved her voice as I love that sound
IV. Et la vie a passé
So life has passed
V. Elle chantait, mais comme se parlant
She sang, as though speaking to herself
VI. Et nul n'a bu au verre
And no one drank from the glass
VII. Ne cesse pas, voix dansante
Never cease, dancing voice
VIII. Ne cesse pas, voix proche
Never cease, nearby voice
IX. Elle chantait: She sang: "I am
X. Et ombre elle était bien
Shadow she was
XI. Elle chantait, et j'ai eu
She sang, and her words

DANS LE LEURRE DES MOTS
IN THE LURE OF WORDS
I. C'est le sommeil d'été
Again this year
II. Et je pourrais
And presently

LA MAISON NATALE
THE HOUSE WHERE I WAS BORN
I. Je m'éveillai
I woke
II. Je m'éveillai
I woke
III. Je m'éveillai
I woke
IV. Une autre fois
Another time
V. Or, dans le même réve
In the same dream
VI. Je m'evéillai
I woke
VII. Je me souviens
I remember
VIII. J'ouvre les yeux
I open my eyes
IX. Et alors un jour vint
Then came the day
X. La vie, alors
Life, then
XI. Et je repars
And I start out again
XII. Beauté et vérité
Beauty and truth

LES BLANCHES COURBES
THE CURVED PLANKS

L'ENCORE AVEUGLE
STILL BLIND

L'ENCORE AVEUGLE
STILL BLIND
I. Les théologiens
The theologians
II. Dieu
God

L'OR SANS VISAGE
FACELESS GOLD
I. Et d'autres
And others
II. Mais d'autres
But others
III. Ils me parlent
They speak to me

JETER DES PIERRES
THROWING STONES

Rouler plus vite
Driving Faster

Rouler plus loin
Driving Farther

Jeter des pierres
Throwing Stones

Afterword by Hoyt Rogers

Translator's Note

Bibliography