Je t'écris de l'autre côté de l'ombre
Je t'écris de l'autre côté de l'ombre
Je t'écris pour ne pas disparaître
pour que les mots me révèlent
pour que tu entendes plus que le vide
Les latitudes s'échappent
Le pluriel a glissé de mes doigts avec les certitudes
Les latitudes s'échappent dans les soubresauts du fleuve
Quand l'ombre se tend vers la fumée
offre-t-elle
des ailes
au vide ?
L'ombre gémit
L'ombre s'avance dans le reflet qui fuit
gémit
transparente et fine
à peine en appui
adossée au temps
Comment concevoir l'ombre de la nuit ?
L'ombre ne sait où sont les ponts
cherche son double et le souffle
répète un cri gris et dru
L'ombre attend le hublot
La lune
frappe
sur ma tête
Barbelés dans ta bouche
Barbelés dans ta bouche
Les mots se crispent
cherchent un passage
déchirés
se redressent
écartelés
Les syllabes éparpillées égarées erratiques
se veulent accumulent l'impossible
voguent à la dérive d'un monde dont on ne comprend plus la langue
Tu renonces
Tu les avales derrière tes paupières
Des jours et des jours et des phrases échouées
Quelle alchimie a joué dans l'impuissance
pour que sous le marronnier
ton regard ait trouvé
la limpidité des lacs chiliens
la douceur d'une aurore nue après la nuit d'orage ?
de L'Ombre-Monde
Roselyne Sibille
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.
