This week’s Translation Tuesday features the work of Andrée Chedid. Expertly translated for sound and content by Lauren Peat, these poems crack like a conceptual whip—the poet writes, “The cry of being / Rattles our targets / Unweaves our wefts.” With a density of imagery and sound as well as a commitment to a somber reflection on modern consciousness, these poems recall the poetry of the French Symbolists, who constructed dense systems of meaning that evoke magnitudes from the mundane or eerie. The vaguely mathematical nature of the poems, captured in “proofs,” means that the reader is driven towards a certain point, or climax, without realizing exactly where they have arrived. Sometimes the subject matter is haunting; at all times it is captivating.

proofs of being

The call of every birth
Cracks the world order

Its verb looks for us
Its breath divests

Planted into marrow
Pulling speech from the field of words
The cry of being
Rattles our targets
Unweaves our wefts
Flips the streaming hourglass
Holds us to the path———— READ MORE…