Deux livres de Frédéric Forte traduits en anglais sont publiés ces jours-ci aux États-Unis.
Le premier, Seven String Quartets, est paru à l’automne 2014 à La Presse dans une traduction de Matthew B. Smith. Il s’agit de la version anglaise de Sept quatuors à cordes, 1ère partie du premier livre de FF, Discographie (éditions de l’Attente, 2002).
Le second, Minute-Operas, est la traduction par Daniel Levin Becker, Ian Monk, Michelle Noteboom et Jean-Jacques Poucel d’Opéras-minute (Théâtre Typographique, 2005), et paraît ce mois-ci chez Burning Deck.
Pour les lecteurs anglophones, voici les quatrièmes de couvertures des deux ouvrages :
Seven String Quartets (La Presse)
“These string quartets begin with a playful take on the tradition, laying out their phrases to echo the spatial arrangement of musicians on stage and capturing the simultaneity of the musical chord. Sometimes painting vivid visuals, sometimes cracking cultural jokes, sometimes celebrating the sheer force of sound that resounds in all language, these poems yet never quite perform in concert—instead they keep tuning up their instruments, fidgeting and fussing, sighing and shrugging, until they quietly, beautifully, exit the stage. Throughout the work, we’re swept along by what turns out to be a surprisingly subtle, finely nuanced performance. ”
Minute-Operas (Burning Deck)
“Frédéric Forte’s Minute-Operas are poems “staged” on the page. A simple vertical line of 3 inches separates what Forte calls the stage and the wings. The poet explores the potential of this form with multiple typographic games, calling on different registers of the language, different poetic techniques and, in the second part of the book, by “fixating as minute-operas” 55 existing poetic forms (come out of various poetic traditions or more recently invented by Oulipo, the famous French “Workshop for potential literature.”)
The poems of Minute-Operas also constitute, in their cryptic way, a journal of the poet’s life during the period of composition (2001-2002): his love life, the loss of his father…
It was shortly after the publication of this book, in 2005, that Frédéric Forte was elected a member of the Oulipo.
“A book as intriguing (by its staging of typographic variations) as it is invigorating (in its micro-narratives).”
—Emmanuel Laugier, Le Matricule des Anges n°67 (octobre 2005)
“Extraordinary inventiveness…funny, original, brilliant”
—Jean-Michel Espitallier, Caisse à Outils : Un panorama de la poésie française aujourd’hui (Pocket, 2006)”
Le premier, Seven String Quartets, est paru à l’automne 2014 à La Presse dans une traduction de Matthew B. Smith. Il s’agit de la version anglaise de Sept quatuors à cordes, 1ère partie du premier livre de FF, Discographie (éditions de l’Attente, 2002).
Le second, Minute-Operas, est la traduction par Daniel Levin Becker, Ian Monk, Michelle Noteboom et Jean-Jacques Poucel d’Opéras-minute (Théâtre Typographique, 2005), et paraît ce mois-ci chez Burning Deck.
Pour les lecteurs anglophones, voici les quatrièmes de couvertures des deux ouvrages :
Seven String Quartets (La Presse)
“These string quartets begin with a playful take on the tradition, laying out their phrases to echo the spatial arrangement of musicians on stage and capturing the simultaneity of the musical chord. Sometimes painting vivid visuals, sometimes cracking cultural jokes, sometimes celebrating the sheer force of sound that resounds in all language, these poems yet never quite perform in concert—instead they keep tuning up their instruments, fidgeting and fussing, sighing and shrugging, until they quietly, beautifully, exit the stage. Throughout the work, we’re swept along by what turns out to be a surprisingly subtle, finely nuanced performance. ”
Minute-Operas (Burning Deck)
“Frédéric Forte’s Minute-Operas are poems “staged” on the page. A simple vertical line of 3 inches separates what Forte calls the stage and the wings. The poet explores the potential of this form with multiple typographic games, calling on different registers of the language, different poetic techniques and, in the second part of the book, by “fixating as minute-operas” 55 existing poetic forms (come out of various poetic traditions or more recently invented by Oulipo, the famous French “Workshop for potential literature.”)
The poems of Minute-Operas also constitute, in their cryptic way, a journal of the poet’s life during the period of composition (2001-2002): his love life, the loss of his father…
It was shortly after the publication of this book, in 2005, that Frédéric Forte was elected a member of the Oulipo.
“A book as intriguing (by its staging of typographic variations) as it is invigorating (in its micro-narratives).”
—Emmanuel Laugier, Le Matricule des Anges n°67 (octobre 2005)
“Extraordinary inventiveness…funny, original, brilliant”
—Jean-Michel Espitallier, Caisse à Outils : Un panorama de la poésie française aujourd’hui (Pocket, 2006)”