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readingtrying82's review against another edition
5.0
This was one of the first collection of poems I read back when I was 21. Almost 11 years later I still remember the experience well, and occasionally open the book every few years. Its tone and images have stuck with me.
In the collection, the poet, Roubauld paints a view of grief, reflecting and being haunted by the death of his wife, Alec Cleo, who died at the young age of 31.
Some of these poems are quite raw but they transcend being simply confession by the sheer artistry. Much experimental poetry tends to be cold or dry; here we have someone experimenting with meaning and words because of the difficulty of words to hold grief, to express loss, to give oneself a will to live. Knowing that words can't quite accomplish these tasks gives the poems a haunted feeling, as if they were reminders of what can only be lived.
There is a great diversity of techniques and approaches in this book, including a lot of halts and silences that move in unexpected directions and surprising phrases.
The title phrase occurs multiple times throughout the collection, like an echoing voice, one such instance:
"Some thing black which closes in locks shut pure, unaccomplished"
The book also includes a collection of photographs by his wife, Alex Cleo, called some thing black and they clearly influenced some of what he wrote.
"I can not write about you with more truth then you have done"
I recommend this book wholeheartedly; one of the unique qualities it contains is its persistence in grief and its concrete emotionality:
"The phone will ring. The voice which the man who is alone because of a death will hear is not that of the woman he loves. It's some other voice, any voice. He will hear it. This does not prove he is alive."
In the collection, the poet, Roubauld paints a view of grief, reflecting and being haunted by the death of his wife, Alec Cleo, who died at the young age of 31.
Some of these poems are quite raw but they transcend being simply confession by the sheer artistry. Much experimental poetry tends to be cold or dry; here we have someone experimenting with meaning and words because of the difficulty of words to hold grief, to express loss, to give oneself a will to live. Knowing that words can't quite accomplish these tasks gives the poems a haunted feeling, as if they were reminders of what can only be lived.
There is a great diversity of techniques and approaches in this book, including a lot of halts and silences that move in unexpected directions and surprising phrases.
The title phrase occurs multiple times throughout the collection, like an echoing voice, one such instance:
"Some thing black which closes in locks shut pure, unaccomplished"
The book also includes a collection of photographs by his wife, Alex Cleo, called some thing black and they clearly influenced some of what he wrote.
"I can not write about you with more truth then you have done"
I recommend this book wholeheartedly; one of the unique qualities it contains is its persistence in grief and its concrete emotionality:
"The phone will ring. The voice which the man who is alone because of a death will hear is not that of the woman he loves. It's some other voice, any voice. He will hear it. This does not prove he is alive."
cielllo's review against another edition
5.0
French Wittgensteinian poetry? on mourning? longing? death? do u need more?
the nature of mourning is especially well reconstructed through obsessive re-iterations of the same images and lines; a hyper-fixation on the departed which is interrupted by the appearances of the 'real' window/ room that the narrator stares through.
language philosophy contemplations & silence work well to illustrate the absence & void the departed left. abruptness of silences between paragraphs as well as breaking up sentences create a sentiment of excruciating pain & difficulty underlying the utterances; while uninterrupted sequences express nostalgia structurally quite beautiful.
about 40 years late, but cher jacques roubaud, my most sincere condolences.
the nature of mourning is especially well reconstructed through obsessive re-iterations of the same images and lines; a hyper-fixation on the departed which is interrupted by the appearances of the 'real' window/ room that the narrator stares through.
language philosophy contemplations & silence work well to illustrate the absence & void the departed left. abruptness of silences between paragraphs as well as breaking up sentences create a sentiment of excruciating pain & difficulty underlying the utterances; while uninterrupted sequences express nostalgia structurally quite beautiful.
about 40 years late, but cher jacques roubaud, my most sincere condolences.
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