Transparence of the World
By Jean Follain; W.S. Merwin (Translator)
(Copper Canyon Press, Paperback, 9781556591907, 120pp.)
Publication Date: January 2003
Categories: Continental European
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Throughout WWII, French poet Jean Follain wrote poems that revisit the provinces of personal and cultural history. His quietly phrased, brief devotions are -described as "miniatures," yet are monumental, capturing the pressure of history upon daily moments. By reducing the world to its small objects, every detail, every image becomes imbued with meaning.
This bilingual volume, celebrating the centennial of Jean Follain’s birth, is translated by W.S. Merwin, who writes in his introduction: "Follain’s concern is finally with the mystery of the present—the mystery which gives the recalled concrete details their form, at once luminous and removed, when they are seen at last in their places, as they seem to be in the best of his poems."
W.S. Merwin is one of America's leading poets. His prizes include the 2005 National Book Award for his collected poems, Migration, the Pulitzer Prize, the Stevens Award, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and Lannan Foundation. He is the author of dozens of books of poetry and translations. He lives in Hawaii, where he cultivates endangered palm trees.
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