I Write to You from the Other Side of the Shadow
I write to you from the other side of the shadow
I write to you
so I do not vanish
so the words reveal me
so you hear more than the void
Latitudes flee
The plural slipped through my fingers with certitudes
Latitudes flee into the tremors of the river
When the shadow leans towards smoke
does it lend
wings
to the void?
The Shadow Moans
The shadow steps forward in the fleeing reflection
moans
sheer and slender
scarcely backing
leaning against time
How does one imagine the shadow of night?
The shadow knows not where the bridges stand
seeks its doppelganger and the breath
echoes a cry thick and grey
The shadow awaits the porthole
The moon
knocks
on my head
Barbwire in your mouth
Barbwire in your mouth
The words clench
seek an exit
torn
straighten up
quartered
The syllables strewn straying unstable
crave to be accrue the impossible
sail adrift from a world whose language we understand no more
You give up
You sip them behind your eyelashes
Days and days and aimless phrases
What alchemy was helplessly at play
that beneath the chestnut tree
your gaze should regain
the clarity of lakes in Chile
the softness of a dawn bare after the night of storm?
from Shadow-World
Roselyne Sibille
translated from the French by Karthika Naïr
Listen to the poems read in the original French by the author:
These poems are from Roselyne Sibille's next collection, L'Ombre-Monde (Shadow-World). In Shadow-World, we enter a world of transience and metamorphosis where earth and water are made up of strokes and colours that are outlined, erased and then given new life in other forms.
Here is a world where the shadow is three-dimensional, elemental and — most importantly — a bearer of tales; tales that we could build to our hearts' desire from the shards of images that these poems reflect.
These poems, to me, seem as fragile and oneiric as age-old calligraphy, the quest for the perfect curve: they reclaim words to reflect the tumbling and vaulting of the soul.
Roselyne Sibille's world blithely demands both precision and creativity from a translator. Transposing her metaphors and visuals, though — or perhaps, rightly, since — shadowy, from one imaginary world to another is an adventure that is often very challenging, but also deeply satisfying when both she and I feel that we have found or built portholes between these worlds.
Here is a world where the shadow is three-dimensional, elemental and — most importantly — a bearer of tales; tales that we could build to our hearts' desire from the shards of images that these poems reflect.
These poems, to me, seem as fragile and oneiric as age-old calligraphy, the quest for the perfect curve: they reclaim words to reflect the tumbling and vaulting of the soul.
Roselyne Sibille's world blithely demands both precision and creativity from a translator. Transposing her metaphors and visuals, though — or perhaps, rightly, since — shadowy, from one imaginary world to another is an adventure that is often very challenging, but also deeply satisfying when both she and I feel that we have found or built portholes between these worlds.
Roselyne Sibille is a French poet born in 1953 in France. She studied geography, and once worked as a librarian. She lives in Provence where she writes on her approach to the human being in connection with self and nature. She gives writing and listening lessons at the University of Aix-en-Provence and has created poetry workgroups at the University of Avignon. She leads writing workgroups for the association Partage d'horizons. She has been organizing writing workshops in the Sahara Desert for the association L'Ami du Vent. Caroline Calloch says of Sibille's work: "Her verses have the musical quality of a score. Language serves as a substitute for notes and forms a libretto . . . Roselyne Sibille's word music vibrates between two poetic silences." She has published several collections and collaborative works, including Lumière froissée (with paintings by Liliane-Eve Brendel), Par la porte du silence (with Bang Hai Ja), Versants and Tournoiements.
Karthika Naïr is the author of a poetry collection, Bearings (HarperCollins India, 2009). She lives in Paris, and works as a producer in performing arts. This proximity to performing arts and to dance, in particular, is refracted in much of her poetry, which has been published in several anthologies and journals including Indian Literature, Caravan India, The Asia Mag, Live Mint, Terre à Ciel, Penguin's 60 Indian Poets and The Bloodaxe Book of Contemporary Indian Poets, The Literary Review and The Poetry Review. Her poems have been translated into French and Italian. Naïr co-scripted British-Bangladeshi choreographer Akram Khan's piece, Desh, which won the 2012 Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Dance Production. Young Zubaan will soon be bringing out The Boy, the Bees and Bonbibi, one of the stories she wrote for Desh, as an illustrated children's book. Nair is currently working on her next collection for HarperCollins.
