{"id":303546,"date":"2016-02-10T21:19:24","date_gmt":"2016-02-10T21:19:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wdev.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent-dev\/2016\/02\/10\/introducing-monospace-by-anne-parian-rtwbc\/"},"modified":"2018-04-16T14:57:25","modified_gmt":"2018-04-16T14:57:25","slug":"introducing-monospace-by-anne-parian-rtwbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/2016\/02\/10\/introducing-monospace-by-anne-parian-rtwbc\/","title":{"rendered":"Introducing "Monospace" by Anne Parian [RTWBC]"},"content":{"rendered":"

The other day I posted some information about Rafael Chirbes and On the Edge<\/em>,<\/a> the prose book we’ll be reading this month in the Reading the World Book Clubs. On the poetry side of things, this month we’ll be talking about Monospace<\/em> by Anne Parian, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan, and since my copy finally arrived (and I finished it last night), I thought I’d get some info up about this as well.<\/p>\n

Before getting to that, just a reminder that anyone interested in participating in the Reading the World Book Clubs should feel free to email me their questions and comments. Or, if you’re more of a public sharer, feel free to post them in the comments section below, on Twitter at #RTWBC, or in the Facebook RTWBC<\/span> Group.<\/a><\/p>\n

Now, on to Monospace.<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

The Author.<\/b><\/p>\n

There’s not a lot of information about Parian available online, at least not in English. There is this YouTube video<\/a> of her reading, and the short bio from the book itself:<\/p>\n

\n

Anne Parian was born in Marseille in 1964 and currently lives in Paris. She is the author of seven books of poetry and hybrid works; she is also a photographer and video artist.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Which, to be honest, is longer than the one I found at P.O.L.:<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

N\u00e9e \u00e0 Marseille en 1964.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

Exerce la psychanalyse \u00e0 Paris.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Her first book, \u00c0 la recherche du lieu de ma naissance<\/em> came out in 1994, and her most recent, La Chambre du milieu<\/em>, is from 2011. Monospace<\/em> came out in 2007. That’s about all I’ve got. <\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

The Translator.<\/b><\/p>\n

From the book:<\/p>\n

\n

Emma Ramadan has a BA in Comparative Literature from Brown University and a Masters in Cultural Translation from the American University of Paris. Her translation of Anne Garr\u00e9ta\u2019s novel Sphinx was published by Deep Vellum and her poetry has appeared in a number of journals. She recently spent a year in Marrakech translating works by the Moroccan writer Ahmed Bouanani and working with Dar al-Ma\u2019m\u00fbn library. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A lot of people reading this will recognize Emma as the translator of Anne Garr\u00e9ta’s Sphinx.<\/em> According to her website,<\/a> she’s translating another of Garr\u00e9ta’s books for Deep Vellum, Not One Day<\/em>, which is slated for a 2017 release. Additionally, she’s also translating The Curious Case of Dassoukine’s Trousers<\/em> by Fouad Laroui for Deep Vellum, and she’s helping put together an issue of Words Without Borders<\/em> dedicated to Moroccan writing. <\/p>\n

As the recipient of a 2013 travel fellowship from the American Literary Translators Association, she’s definitely one of the top up-and-coming translators of French writing. Her dual interest in Moroccan literature and more experimental texts is really interesting as well . . . <\/p>\n

The Publisher.<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

La Presse is an imprint of Fence Books and is dedicated to contemporary French poetry and hybrid-genre work translated by English-language poets. We’re a nano-press; we publish one to three books a year.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

If I’m not mistaken, this is all Cole Swensen. Which, given all the other things that she does, explains why they’re publishing only a couple of books a year. So far, La Presse has brought out fourteen titles, with translations by Keith Waldrop, Eleni Sikelianos, Jean-Jacques Poucel, and several other well respected translators. <\/p>\n

The books are beautifully produced, well-edited, wonderfully translated. I’m more or less completely outside of the poetry world, but hopefully they’re well-received as well. It’s an impressive project.<\/p>\n

<\/center><\/p>\n

The Book.<\/b><\/p>\n

Here’s the jacket copy:<\/p>\n

\n

Monospace<\/em> is, first and finally, the dream of a garden. There are so many gardens\u2014there is, of course, the story of a perfect one\u2014and perfectly lost. So these pages gather perfumes, trees, benches, buildings, colors, and perspectives all together. They arrange a terrain, a territory, a trench, a tableau. But how, among inevitable ruins, can we create a space that can only take form as it is being described? Monospace repeats the question: \u201cHow can we garden space into existence?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

That seems about right. I’m really at a loss about how to talk about poetry books, which is one reason why I wanted to start up this part of the RTWBC<\/span>—hopefully some smarter people out there, who are more keyed into contemporary poetry, can help me come to better understand and appreciate it. <\/p>\n

The book is broken up into three sections (or maybe four, if you count the list of items that prefaces the first one, or maybe five if you count the “Index”): “The Scenery,” “I Begin Again,” and “Repetitions.” <\/p>\n

“The Scenery” includes a fair number of footnotes, right from the start. Most of the poem involves descriptions of a landscape, but with more of a focus on the intentionality of creating\/describing this landscape. <\/p>\n

For example, here’s a simple line from the beginning:<\/p>\n

\n

The unique use of frankly unstable seated postures28<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

28. I prefer folding chairs
\nto rest or reflect
\nthey perk me up
\nthough they mock me with their garish colors<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The second section, “I Begin Again,” does away with the footnotes, while ramping up the intentionality of the construction. (Again, this is my dumb interpretation\/reading.) <\/p>\n

\n

First problem<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

a garden is never ideal<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

it resists the effects appearing without follow-through repeated with
\njoy<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

I begin again<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

the roots spreading out on each side I throw the whole so that it is
\nreflected
\nunder the radar of perception<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\n

of interphenomena of drawings of stains
\nof style<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“Repetitions” is a bit tighter, but similar:<\/p>\n

\n

Go off often without looking
\nor staying
\nwould I look for it
\nnow that I don’t believe it
\nby collecting comforts
\nwithout sufficient aid or ways
\nunstable
\nwithout the support
\nof that which we
\ncarelessly remember<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The book ends with a ten-page index that seems to list the appearance of every word in the book. “drawings: 36, 45, 61, 70, 87; dream: 105; dreams: 21,50,92.” I don’t know what to make of that, except that these are maybe the individual materials for making the “monospace”? (Again, dumb. Don’t read a lot of poetry. Trying my best.) <\/p>\n

Another Notable Thing.<\/b><\/p>\n

According to the note at the end, the book was designed by Erica Mena, who happens to the executive director of the American Literary Translators Association. That’s a nice connection.<\/p>\n

So go out and buy the book<\/a> and send along some comments, questions, interpretations, etc. And if you’re on Facebook, join the RTWBC<\/span> group!<\/a> (Or use #RTWBC on the Twitters.) <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The other day I posted some information about Rafael Chirbes and On the Edge, the prose book we’ll be reading this month in the Reading the World Book Clubs. On the poetry side of things, this month we’ll be talking about Monospace by Anne Parian, translated from the French by Emma Ramadan, and since my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67486],"tags":[63906,63936,60166,31266,63926,63916,1916,63816],"class_list":["post-303546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","tag-anne-parian","tag-cole-swensen","tag-emma-ramadan","tag-french-poetry","tag-la-presse","tag-monospace","tag-reading-the-world-book-clubs","tag-rtwbc"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=303546"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":333356,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/303546\/revisions\/333356"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=303546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=303546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rochester.edu\/College\/translation\/threepercent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=303546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}