IN SUSPENSION AFTER YAN KOUTON - TAKEN FROM THE ANTHOLOGY RIMBAUD ET MOI

Some wonderful work to be discovered in the anthology above, an idea of Gerard Bereny's and which was recently published by Editions du Pont de l'Europe earlier this year. I was very happy to have had a poem of mine, which originally appeared in The Dark Pool - now sadly out of print, published in it.

Fun fact.  I am the only living native English speaking author to have been published in the book,  the only other English speaker to have been so honoured is David Wojnarowicz, and he's dead!

I'm obviously not going to publish my poem in English here, if you want to read it just buy the anthology! 

However, here's a translation into English of a poem in French, which does appear in the anthology, by my old friend Yan Kouton just to give you a little taste of the kind of writing that is published in the book. I'm attaching the link to the publishers website.

Yan is a wonderful poet, here is my translation - his original in French also can be found in the anthology... 

                                                                                       In Suspension

After Yan Kouton

 

 

 Memory gives way too

Into dreams

That false mémoire

Until it swoons

 

Into the memory of origin

Which is only rarely

Captured in verse

To the point of

Exhaustion

From which the city is built

 

And which you think

You have seen in its universal form

Yet only plunge

Into its spleen

 

Which you pursue

Like a wheel

Upon an eternal

 Road

 

Such is the way it is

When we look

Straight ahead

 

 

Fixedly

Such writing

With its intimidating

Stealth

 

After all

This is all that’s left

When everything

Perishes

 

Like a tormented desire

Or a violent will

 

But which runs in the veins

Through the blood

 

Flowing forever outward

Into the streets

And their tributaries

Through the force

Of such a unique

Soul

 

 

Only to park then in the

Temporary halting site

                                                                         Of the world.

  https://editionsdupontdeleurope.eproshopping.fr/1199832-rimbaud-et-moi-59-artistes-et-auteurs-a-travers-le-monde.html?fbclid=IwAR325v_N1NQGTSzzh1R4mOEeJryIbUEm7adOM8Z-wZ53mXH2RepoL1Yk3Gg