Ossature jetée à…
Ossature jetée à l’ex-
trême pointe d’une vague à peine
dégagée
de la flamme Le vent
met à mal le tranquille
cheminement d’un homme
emplit
de bourrasque la chair
sitôt déposée que tirée
hors les murs hors
les yeux Le vol-
can garderait
ses cendres son
haleine
et près d’elle
une fiction épaissie
de nuages
si dans le cerveau
rien ne retombait
Translations of this Poem
Skeleton tossed...
Translator: David Kinloch
Skeleton tossed to the top
most tip of a wave barely
clear
of the flame The wind
jousts with a man’s
calm advance
fills his flesh
with gusts
no sooner settling in than yanked
beyond the walls beyond
the eyes The vol
cano might hold on
to its ash its
breath
and close by
a thick story
of clouds
if nothing drifted
down within the brain
About this poem
The Scottish Poetry Library in partnership with the Institut français d’Ecosse invited Jacques Rancourt, director of the annual Festival franco-anglais de poésie and editor of La Traductière, to choose about twenty poems from the last twenty years to be circulated to four Scottish poets, who would then choose twelve poems to translate.
M. Rancourt and Magi Gibson, David Kinloch, Brian McCabe and Donny O’Rourke gathered in the Scottish Poetry Library on 15 December 2002 for a concentrated day of translation, re-working and working on the poems they’d chosen, with advice from M. Rancourt and in discussion with each other. This collegial approach was different from the usual practice of showing work to one or two friends in its intensity of focus and level of exchange.
