Carnac

Eugene Guillevic, who died in 1997, was one of France's most important contemporary poets. Dating from 1961, Carnac marks the beginning of Guillevic's mature life as a poet. A single poem divided into several parts, it evokes the rocky, sea-bound, unfinished landscape of Brittany with its sacred objects and its great silent sense of waiting. The texts are brief but have a grave, meditative serenity, as the poet seeks to effect balance and help us to make friends with nature, as well as to live in a universe which is chaotic and often frightening. In this poetry of description -- where entire landscapes are built up from short, intense texts -- language is reduced to its essentials, as words are placed on the page like a dam against time, and aspire to what John Montague calls their mystic materialism.

Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Bloodaxe Books
Published: 11/01/1999
ISBN: 9781852243937
Pages: 152
Weight: 0.55lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.40w x 0.40d

Review Citations: Kirkus Reviews 07/15/2000 pg. 996
Publishers Weekly 08/14/2000 pg. 350