And, Nonetheless: Selected Prose and Poetry 1990-2009
By what absence of path should one try to progress, all the same? By starting from uncertainy, destitution, the weakness engendered by doubt, says Philippe Jaccottet. --Pierre-Albert JourdanThe Swiss-born poet Philippe Jaccottet, who has translated the likes of Homer, Goethe, and Rilke into French in addition to producing his own work, is a translator in more ways than one. Understanding writing as an attempt to translate the inexpressible into words, he muses: 'I even wonder if what we instinctively sense asthe most beautiful thingis not what is closest to the secret of the world, what most faithfully translates the message sometimes seemingly tossed through the air all the way to us.' Through careful observations of nature, Jaccottet uses writing to get to the bottom of things, to tease out this 'secret' and perhaps discover some of the truth hidden in the natural world. --Liza Katz,The Arts Fuse(August 17, 2011)Always, if he were writing in the air. As if he were tracing circles in the air while looking down from above, with a hawk's or a buzzard's eye. While keeping himself from embracing too vast a territory, while focusing the beam on the response of the catch and the heart of the question. Walking through the grass, the undergrowth, the streets of a stone village in a countryside that he has chosen. Moving forward by means of concise, highly sharpened sentences that are precisely and miraculously aimed. Mastering word and image. Especially mastering their propensity to drift away, to brim over, to avoid the scales that weigh them, that measure their accuracy. Circles traced and incorporated, like a path burning itself up and evaporating as it plunges ever deeper into the live, lively, open sensations of reality at hand and its enlightened plentitude. --Jacques DupinThe Swiss-born poet Philippe Jaccottet, who has translated the likes of Homer, Goethe, and Rilke into French in addition to producing his own work, is a translator in more ways than one. Understanding writing as an attempt to translate the inexpressible into words, he muses: 'I even wonder if what we instinctively sense asthe most beautiful thingis not what is closest to the secret of the world, what most faithfully translates the message sometimes seemingly tossed through the air all the way to us.' Through careful observations of nature, Jaccottet uses writing to get to the bottom of things, to tease out this 'secret' and perhaps discover some of the truth hidden in the natural world. --Liza Katz,The Arts Fuse(August 17, 2011)Always, if he were writing in the air. As if he were tracing circles in the air while looking down from above, with a hawk's or a buzzard's eye. While keeping himself from embracing too vast a territory, while focusing the beam on the response of the catch and the heart of the question. Walking through the grass, the undergrowth, the streets of a stone village in a countryside that he has chosen. Moving forward by means of concise, highly sharpened sentences that are precisely and miraculously aimed. Mastering word and image. Especially mastering their propensity to drift away, to brim over, to avoid the scales that weigh them, that measure their accuracy. Circles traced and incorporated, like a path burning itself up and evaporating as it plunges ever deeper into the live, lively, open sensations of reality at hand and its enlightened plentitude. --Jacques Dupin