Body Was book cover
November 5, 2021 | Litmus Press | 978—1—933959—51—1

Body Was

Suites & Their Variations (2006-2009)
Isabelle Garron | Eléna Rivera (translator)
$18.00

Body Was: Suites & their variations (2006-2009) is a book-length poem that begins with the death of a father and ends with the birth of a child. It is a bold and innovative poem that works on principles of improvisation, like those of Keith Jarrett and other jazz greats, where the reader is drawn into a series of movements that rise and fall like waves. The poem is divided into six “Suites,” each with its own “Variation,” each with its notations, echoes and silences, all the while maintaining the poem’s forward movement. Isabelle Garron is able to capture the mind’s motions, its fleeting thoughts, its fragmentations, shedding light on past and future, while at the same time showing the clarity of a present breaking in.

Isabelle Garron is a younger generation French poet who teaches in Paris. She is the author of Qu’il faille (Editions Flammarion, 2007), Face devant contre (Editions Flammarion, 2002), Déferlage II (Editions Les Cahiers de la Seine, 2002), and Le corps échéant (Editions Les Cahiers de la Seine, 2000). Garron has also participated as poet and/or editor in various French journals, including Petite, Action Poétique, and Action restreinte.

Eléna Rivera is a poet and translator who was born in Mexico City and spent her formative years in Paris. She won the 2010 Robert Fagles prize for her translation of Bernard Noël’s The Rest of the Voyage (Graywolf Press, 2011) and is a recipient of a 2010 National Endowment for the Arts Literature Fellowship in Translation. Eléna’s latest books of poetry are Epic Series (Shearsman, 2021) and Scaffolding (Princeton University Press, 2017). She has received fellowships from the Djerassi Foundation, the Witter Bynner Poetry Translator Residency, and the MacDowell Colony.

Format
Paperback
Pages
240
Dimensions
8"x5"x0.375"
Weight
11 oz.

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