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One of France's most important modern poets, Eugene Guillevic
(1907-97) was born in Carnac in Brittany, and although he never
learned the Breton language, his personality is deeply marked by
his feeling of oneness with his homeland. His poetry has a
remarkable unity, driven by his desire to use words to bridge a
tragic gulf between man and a harsh and often apparently hostile
natural environment. For Guillevic, the purpose of poetry is to
arouse the sense of Being. In this poetry of description - where
entire landscapes are built up from short, intense texts - language
is reduced to its essentials, as words are placed on the page 'like
a dam against time'. When reading these poems, it is as if time is
being stopped for man to find himself again. Carnac (1961) marks
the beginning of Guillevic's mature life as a poet. A single poem
in several parts, it evokes the rocky, sea-bound, unfinished
landscape of Brittany with its sacred objects and its great silent
sense of waiting. The texts are brief but have a grave, meditative
serenity, as the poet seeks to effect balance and to help us 'to
make friends with nature' and to live in a universe which is
chaotic and often frightening. Introduction by Stephen Romer.
French-English bilingual edition. Bloodaxe Contemporary French
Poets: 9
This bilingual collection of Eugene Guillevic's work, chosen from
six of his books published between 1942 and 1966, and translated by
the poet Denise Levertov, introduces American readers to a
highly-acclaimed French poet. Guillevic was born in Carnac in 1907
of peasant stock. He sees the profoundly austere Breton landscapes
(and all else in life) not as incidental backgrounds, but as
elemental, living presences. His poems embody his indignation at
the use and misuse of some human beings by others--as well as his
cold and clear understanding of historical process. Like William
Carlos Williams, he has a sharp eye, and as Miss Levertov points
out in her introduction, "the simplicity of diction, the plain and
hard meaning of things without descriptive qualification,
reverberates, in the highly charged condensation of Guillevic's
poems, with the ambiguity, the unfathomable mystery of natural
objects." In translating these poems, Denise Levertov has drawn
upon the affinity that exists between her own style and
Guillevic's. She has attained comparable effects of concision and
clarity and has reproduced with great subtlety the characteristic
rhythm and cadence patterns of the French originals.
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Summoned (Paperback)
Eugene Guillevic; Translated by Monique Chefdor, Stella Harvey
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R884
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