Theory of Prepositions by Claude Royet-Journoud, Keith Waldrop (Translator)

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Synopsis

This is the first title from La Presse, a new imprint of Fence Books publishing contemporary experimental French poetry in English translation. Publishing two new titles a year, the imprint will explore the rich variety of experimentation coming out of small French presses such as P.O.L. and Bleu du ciel, work that shares with much new American poetry the legacies of the radical Modernists. This book, precise and distilled, pushes at the limits of language and finds there a wonder with humanity at its center.

Publishers Weekly

Royet-Journoud is associated in France with poets Anne-Marie Albiach and Emmanuel Hocquard, both of whom American poet and translator Waldrop has published via Burning Deck, the influential small press he runs with his wife, Rosemary. The signature trait they share in their work is theoretical sophistication grounded in sensuality and emotional elasticity, resulting in poems at once abstract and immediate: "Having chosen the angle, photographs the muscle./ The image comes down. We're outside. Submitting/ and fallen." Waldrop's translation of these seven prose and verse sequences beguiles. This is the inaugural volume in Fence's La Presse series of contemporary French poetry in translation, edited by American poet Cole Swensen (The Book of a Hundred Hands). It's a lovely first selection but galley-quality production may limit off-the-shelf sales. (May) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Biography

Since the 1970s, CLAUDE ROYET-JOURNOUD has been a leader in innovative French letters. Attentive to the experiments of Stein, Zukofsky, and others, his work is an important voice in the ongoing international conversation that emerged from the radical Modernism of the early twentieth century. KEITH WALDROP is the author of over twenty volumes of poetry and fiction, and has translated four other books by Royet-Journoud as well as works by Dominique Fourcade, Edmond Jabes, Charles Baudelaire, and others.