Notebook of Roses and Civilization
BROSSARD, NICOLE
translated by Robert Majzels and Erín Moure
English translation copyright © Robert Majzels
and Erín Moure, 2007
Original French text copyright © Nicole Brossard, 2003
Originally published in 2003 as Cahier de roses et de civilisation by Éditions d’art le Sabord
This translation was funded by the Canada Council for the Arts
Translation Grants program. The publisher would also like to thank,
for their support, the Block Grant Programs of the Canada Council
for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. We also acknowledge the
Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry
Development Program.
This epub edition published in 2010. Electronic ISBN 978 1 77056 166 3.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Brossard, Nicole, 1943-
[Cahier de roses & de civilisation. English]
Notebook of roses and civilization / Nicole Brossard; translated
by Robert Majzels and Erin Mouré. -- 1st ed.
Poems.
Translation of: Cahier de roses & de civilisation.
ISBN 978-1-55245-181-6
I. Majzels, Robert, 1950- II. Mouré, Erin, 1955- III. Title.
PS8503.R7C3413 2007 C841′.54 C2007-901568-9
Apparition of Objects
winter water blue melt backlit
life suddenly in thin chemise
steadfast
in questions and old silences
in the puzzle of proper nouns
and barking city: February
slow eyelashes that beckon to love
and spinning tops
foliage of word for word
gentleness that evades meaning
plunge into the dark
with metronome
crabs eels intestines
legs and antennae
destiny you said it
from memory
with a single verb
the thousand and one possibilities of the toe, the foot
the ankle
images in the subway glued to each other
faces pressed against the whys
the saliva the fingernails
it all goes beyond
adverbs and bones
the future the future
naked things design
audacity vertical
a woman in panties
half-spoken surrounded
by syntax and paintings
dark eyebrows
a starlet sings
an amphetamine clenched in her teeth
fire close to dying
at the edge of a forest
kiss that counts
someone standing
before an accident
of cars and fiction
under the eyelid:
time’s measuring tape
dust in equilibrium
peoples and their signatures
their faces more alive
than crabs and pigeons in the shade
of cherry trees
poetry drawn back from daring
fiction if you ask me
hazelnut: image of an old
tomb with a squirrel
a photo repeated that sparks a taste
for pleasure with a grain of salt
on the tongue
a photo repeated
a stack of selves archived
big blue armchairs
their cloth arms worn down
by memory and odours
that intoxicate. Retina,
adjust your thoughts
emergency staircase on a slant
with slow blue flung at the sky
window and woman smiling
the rust the steel, broken panes
of America the colour of graffiti
then in slow motion: tulips appear
spinal cord
strange archives
on the iron rails
of a century the mud
of a day the immensity
Sombre: night flower or calculated shadow brief flame: hypothesis
Feinte speak reflection seen through glasses all words are ribbons
reading lèvres micro i know the answer poems that demand we open the fire the heart: devour me
palace and ice
parentheses (duvet)
orange, epidermis
pillowcases
i beg of you: answer
birds pepper-coloured
a flight of silence with clouds
distant. I retrace my steps
touch here a woman’s arm
tiny algae that enter
gastronomy
blue water imbued water
always another beginning
the lemon the martini the olive
all that amuses
then came night with its lampshades
describe the light
touch tomorrow
the immense everyday furled in the iris
a morning
of found orchids
Soft Link 1
It’s fears slow and fascinating that enter life each morning at coffee time while she wonders if tomorrow there’ll be war and brusquely as she does each morning slices bread and cheese. It’s gestures of uncontrollable avidity that proliferate in the throng and its worldly febrility, its parquet fever on the trading floor and stage. It’s hesitations, heart cries that crisscross broad avenues full of shade and dust that attract and make us think of our legs and elbows, our knees too when desire bumps and bounces words and feelings upward, it’s simple things with prefixes like cyber or bio that hold thoughts fast, float them a moment