YVES BONNEFOY ~

 

YV E S    B O N N E F O Y

Seagull Books

2020

TOGETHER STILL ~

R E A D      M E

Seagull Books 2017

POETRY AND PHOTOGRAPHY ~

A     R E V I E W

YVES BONNEFOY PARIS REVIEW INTERVIEW ~

Y V E S   B O N N E F O Y

The Paris Review Interview

http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/1790/the-art-of-poetry-no-69-yves-bonnefoy

 

THE ANCHOR'S LONG CHAIN ~

Seagull Books 2015

Yves Bonnefoy

 

The Anchor’s Long Chain (Ales Stenar)

translated by Beverley Bie Brahic 

 
I

They say
Boats appear in the sky
And from some of them
The anchor’s long chain may rattle down,
Down towards our furtive land.
The anchor bobs over our fields and trees
Seeking a place to moor,
But soon a wish from above yanks it free; 
The ship of elsewhere has no use for here,
Its horizon lies in another dream.

It may however come to pass
That the anchor is heavy, unusually so,
And rakes the ground, rumpling the trees.
Someone saw it snag a church door,
Catch the arch where our hope fades,
And a sailor had to shinny down
The taut, jerking chain,
And free his heaven from our night.

YVES BONNEFOY ~

Yves Bonnefoy

The Present Hour

Seagull Books, 2013

Translated by Beverley Bie Brahic

SECOND SIMPLICITY ~

Yves Bonnefoy

(born 24 June 1923)

Happy Birthday !

French poet and essayist, Bonnefoy was born in Tours, Indre-et-Loire, the son of a railroad worker and a teacher. His works are at the same time poetic and theoretical, examining the meaning of the spoken and written word.

A BIT OF WATER



I long to grant eternity

To this flake

That alights on my hand,

By making my life, my warmth,

My past, my present days

Into a moment: the boundless

Moment of now.



But already it's no more

Than a bit of water, lost in the fog

Of bodies moving through snow.





LE PEU D'EAU



À ce flocon

Qui sur ma main se pose, j'ai désir

D' assurer l'éternel

En faisant de ma vie, de ma chaleur,

De mon passé, de ces jours d'à présent,

Un instant simplement : cet instant-ci, sans bornes.



Mais déjà il n'est plus

Qu'un peu d'eau, qui se perd

Dans la brume des corps qui vont dans la neige.


_________________________________



YVES BONNEFOY
SECOND SIMPLICITY
New Poetry and Prose 1991-2011
( Yale / Margellos )

translated by Hoyt Rogers

photo : Eric Garault pour Lire