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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