The Collected Poems of Edouard Glissant
This volume collects and translates-most for the first time-the nine volumes of poetry published by Édouard Glissant, a poet, novelist, and critic increasingly recognized as one of the great writers of the twentieth century. The poems bring to life what Glissant calls "an archipelago-like reality," partaking of the exchanges between Europe and its former colonies, between humans and their geographies, between the poet and the natural world.Reciting and re-creating histories of the African...
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This volume collects and translates-most for the first time-the nine volumes of poetry published by Édouard Glissant, a poet, novelist, and critic increasingly recognized as one of the great writers of the twentieth century. The poems bring to life what Glissant calls "an archipelago-like reality," partaking of the exchanges between Europe and its former colonies, between humans and their geographies, between the poet and the natural world.Reciting and re-creating histories of the African diaspora, Columbus's "discovery" of the New World, the slave trade, and the West Indies, Glissant underscores the role of poetic language in changing both past and present irrevocably. As translator Jeff Humphries writes in his introduction, Glissant's poetry embraces the aesthetic creed of the French symbolists Mallarmé and Rimbaud ("The poet must make himself into a seer") and aims at nothing less than a hallucinatory experience of imagination in which the differences among poem, reader, and subject dissolve into one immediate present. Born in Martinique in 1928, influenced by the controversial Martinican poet/politician Aimé Césaire, and educated at the Sorbonne in Paris, Édouard Glissant has emerged as one of the most influential postcolonial theorists, novelists, playwrights, and poets not only in the Caribbean but also in contemporary French letters. He has twice been a finalist for the Nobel Prize in Literature as well as the recipient of both the Prix Renaudot and the Prix Charles Veillon in France. His works include Poetics of Relation, Caribbean Discourse, Faulkner Mississippi, and the novel The Ripening. He currently serves as Distinguished Professor of French at City University of New York, Graduate Center. Jeff Humphries is Louisiana State University Foundation Distinguished Professor of French, English, and Comparative Literature. He has published several books of poetry, fiction, essays, and literary criticism, including Borealis (Minnesota, 2002).
IntroductionEyes voice6November7Savage reading8Rock9Slow train10Tree great tree11Black smoke12Elements13Nourishing air17Cities19Confession20Vertigo in cold weather22Glory23To die, not to die24Temptations25Solitude26Beauty27Abrupt28Mainstay29The dead and living tree30A field of islands33Theater49Ocean50Incantation51Morning52The bay of the sky53Secret cliff54Promenade of solitary death57The book of offerings59The house of sands61Verses63Consecration66The indies69The first day103Carthage108Salt taxes114Africa118Wounds123High noon128Acclamation132Goree135Burned field136Fats137House for the dead138Behanzin139Country140Iron-dogs141Letters of calling142Country143In Savane Square144Privileged prose145Factory still146Country147Moreover148Prose149Dlan150Dlan151Dlan152The doubter153The doubter154Trace155Role156Ashes157Language158Country159Deafer than the sea160Salt marshes161Country162Pretty men163Green ray164Vaval165Mangroves166Poetic167Cactus168In actuality169Study days170The alchemist's fire171Fiefs172Ideal173Ball and chain or ash174Strike175"Within the budding pineapple groves"176Guadeloupe177Ones178Throttle179Tomorrows180Country183The country of before185Ata-Eli, the blind man, and Ichneumon188Song of Ichneumon190For Laoka191Song of Thael and Matthew193For Mycea196Country199Traces201Fastes205Bayou225The great chaoses231The stolen eye239Wooded regions246The volcano's water250
