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Poems by Tania Langlais Translated by Jessica Cuello


this story doesn’t end well

he dies 

trampled 

by a dappled grey horse

this story makes noise

hooves blood

now run


such beauty

that summer

blue forget-me-nots 

you played

a Brahms lullaby

while Percival fell


I won’t know how to explain

the waves to you like the

extreme 

fixity

in passing objects


 

you love seagulls

you say it’s beautiful 

to see sad birds 

I find

a sublime ending

the boats keep holding their breath

you can rest now


Percival it’s just stones

in my coat pockets

I’m not crazy

I drown often

the day ends well

and the river is sweet


broken vertebrae

and better

than the horse

I carry you inside me

like despair

I revise sea

and repetition: 

I’ll be right there

gently

to open the sky for you

with a piston


someone listens

at the door 

a drowned woman

sleeps in his arms

blouse unbuttoned

the heart offers itself

you can kiss her


I looked for you in all the books

head under water

white dress on a blank page

ends of the earth

in the morning 

suddenly peaceful

a blanket


let’s finish it:

no message

only some lesions

night 

hammers

a trusting

patience

I begin again 

to find the right words


cette histoire n’ira pas bien

on meurt à la fin

piétiné par un cheval

gris pommelé

c’est une histoire qui fait du bruit

les sabots le sang

maintenant courez


c’était l’été il y avait

la belle que voilà

bleu myosotis

pendant que Perceval tombait

tu jouais

une berceuse de Brahms


je ne saurai pas t’expliquer

les vagues comme

l’extrême 

fixité

des choses qui passent


tu aimes les mouettes

c’est beau à voir

les oiseaux tristes, dis-tu

je trouverai

une fin fabuleuse

les bateux retiendront leur souffle

tu peux te reposer


Perceval c’est que des roches

aux poches de mon manteau

je ne suis pas folle

souvent je me noie

la journée sera bonne

et la rivière très douce


les vertèbres rompues

mieux qu’à cheval

je te porte en moi

comme une désolation

je corrige la mer

et la répétition:

je m’en viens

doucement

t’ouvrir le ciel

avec un vilebrequin


quelqu’un écoute

à la porte

une noyée

dort dans ses bras

le coeur offert

déboutonné

tu peux l’embrasser


je t’ai cherché dans tous les livres

la tête sous l’eau

robe blanche sur le blanc

des fins du monde

dans le matin

soudain paisible

une couverture


finissons-en:

pas de message

quelques lésions seulement

la nuit les marteaux

une patience

insoupçonnée

je recommençais pourtant

à trouver de bons titres


Translator’s Note

Pendant que Perceval tombait occurs in a single day and encompasses both the day of Woolf’s suicide and the death of the character Percival from Woolf’s novel The Waves. Pendant que Perceval tombait draws from overlapping sources: literary fiction, literary biography, and a third voice which enters subtly, a voice I believe to be the poet. The untitled poems move together as a single work. This particular group of poems has been culled from different sections and includes both the first and last poems in the book. Woolf said of The Waves that the voices were not meant to be separate characters at all. So too, the voices in Pendant que Perceval tombait intersect without clear demarcation. Pendant que Perceval tombait restructures time and accesses the pleasurable dreaminess where literature and “real” life converge. In The Waves, Woolf indicates the passage of time with a third person description of the sun passing over the sea. These poems know that time does not reach us in a linear way, especially time that concerns grief and despair. Lines recur; they move forward, they pull back like the sea. They do not fully arrive. Yes, we are aware of two dramatic events, Woolf’s suicide and Perceval’s death, yet we remain suspended in recurring image. We are held in image and then released, then held again.  In an interview with “L’Actualite” in October 2021, Langlais calls the book “un arrêt sur image” and explains that she does not write to give sense but “to soothe the obstinate, sad voice that accompanies her.” This distinctly feminine work possesses the narrative detail to move time forward, but it is not narrative that counts here, nor is it explanation; no, we are entranced by repetition as if by the sea.  


Jessica Cuello’s Liar was selected by Dorianne Laux for the 2020 Barrow Street Book Prize and her manuscript Yours, Creature is forthcoming from JackLeg Press in spring of 2023. Cuello is also the author of Hunt (The Word Works, 2017) and Pricking (Tiger Bark Press, 2016). Cuello has been awarded The 2017 CNY Book Award, The 2016 Washington Prize, The New Letters Poetry Prize, a Saltonstall Fellowship, and The New Ohio Review Poetry Prize. She is a poetry editor at Tahoma Literary Review and teaches French in CNY.

Tania Langlais is the author of Douze bêtes aux chemises de l’homme and she received the Prix Émile-Nelligan at age 20, the youngest person to ever receive this award. Born in Montreal in 1979, she currently lives in Outouais. Pendant que Perceval tombait is her fourth book and was awarded The Governor General’s Award of Canada and Le Prix Alain-Grandbois de l’Académie des lettres du Québec.


12 July 2022



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