Interlitq publishes a translation into English from the French of the poem “Resserrés en grappes sombres” from “Errer Mortelle” (“Wandering Mortal”) by the Swiss author José-Flore Tappy, a contributor to Issue 15 of Interlitq, by John Taylor, a contributor to Issue 11 of Interlitq, and Issue 15 of Interlitq
from Wandering Mortal
Tightened into dark clusters
the low bushes
brood over all the sorrow
of the grieving man
watching the animals fleeing afar
on the tilted earth
and pushed by the wind
leaving us paltry
destitute
at my feet
the dusty silence
and the crumbled day
Errer mortelle (extrait)
Resserrés en grappes sombres
les buissons bas
couvent toute la peine
de l’homme en deuil
regardant fuir au loin les bêtes
sur la terre inclinée
poussées par le vent
nous laissant pauvres
dénués
à mes pieds
le silence en poussière
et le jour éboulé
About José-Flore Tappy: José-Flore Tappy was born in Lausanne in 1954. She is the author of five volumes of poetry: Errer mortelle (Payot, 1983), Pierre à feu (Empreintes, 1987), Terre battue (Empreintes, 1995), Lunaires (La Dogana, 2001), and Hangars (Empreintes, 2006). She has won two prestigious Swiss literary awards: the Ramuz Prize for Errer mortelle and the Schiller Prize for Hangars as well as her entire poetic oeuvre. She works as an editor and scholar at the Centre de Recherches sur les Lettres Romandes at the University of Lausanne. In John Taylor’s translations, her poems have appeared in the Antioch Review, the International Literary Quarterly, Carte Blanche, Asymptote, and Trans Lit Magazine, and are forthcoming in Thrush, Rowboat, and The Bitter Oleander.
About John Taylor: John Taylor received a 2011 NEA grant for his project to translate Georges Perros’s Papiers collés and a second grant, from the Sonia Raiziss Charitable Foundation, to translate Louis Calaferte’s Le Sang violet de l’améthyste. He has recently translated books by Philippe Jaccottet (And, Nonetheless, Chelsea), Pierre-Albert Jourdan (The Straw Sandals, Chelsea), and Jacques Dupin (Of Flies and Monkeys, Bitter Oleander Press). Taylor’s most recent collection of personal writings is The Apocalypse Tapestries (Xenos), and he has a new book, If Night is Falling, forthcoming with the Bitter Oleander Press in April, 2012. He is also the author of the three-volume essay collection, Paths to Contemporary French Literature (Transaction), as well as Into the Heart of European Poetry (Transaction).
