If There Were Anywhere but Desert: The Selected Poems of Edmond Jabes by Edmond Jabes, Keith Waldrop (Translator), Robert Duncan (Afterword), Paul Auster (Introduction)

From the Publisher

This first collection of poetry by the influential French/Egyptian/Jewish writer, known for a powerful poetic prose of his own invention (The Book of Questions, etc.), contains early and late poems, consistently exhibiting styles and themes closely related to the prose: economy of reference, passionate lyricism, aphoristic tendencies, preoccupation with the act of writing itself, and the ever-present theme of exile. Masterfully translated in a bilingual edition with important contributions by Robert Duncan and Paul Auster.

Library Journal

This publication may be one of the high points in recent poetry. Jabes is a true explorer of his mediumthe chronicler of the outsider's odyssey through the 20th century. His beautifully cryptic vision marries mysticism, surrealism, and the ``new'' semiotics. The long poems are powerful evocations of anxiety and longing, comparable to Breton and Lamantia; emotion and vocabulary reach a pitch in poems like ``Slumber Inn'': ``The world loses its waterfalls/ its dawn bells of granite/ An image to skim in all directions/ with its coins of flame.'' Yet his is also an incomparable aphoristic style: ``Sex is always a vowel.'' As an international poet, Jabes is a force to consider. Ivan Arguelles, Univ. of California, Berkeley, Lib.

Product Details