Avant Desire: A Nicole Brossard Reader

A Nicole Brossard Reader

Nicole Brossard, Nicole Brossard, Sina Queryas, Sina Queryas, Genevieve Robichaud, Genevieve Robichaud, Erin Wunker, Erin Wunker

• Publisher: Coach House Books
• Year: 2020
• Print ISBN: 9781552454039
• eBook ISBN: 9781770566279
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Canadian Poetry
• Index: Literature

The definitive survey of an essential feminist poet.

In June 2019, Nicole Brossard was awarded the Lifetime Recognition Award from the Griffin Poetry Trust. Rarely has a prize been so richly deserved. For five decades she has writing ground-breaking poetry, fiction, and criticism in French that has always been steadfastly and unashamedly feminist and lesbian.

Avant Desire moves through Brossard’s body of work with a playful attentiveness to its ongoing lines of inquiry. Like her work, this reader moves beyond conventional textual material to include ephemera, interviews, marginalia, lectures, and more. Just as Brossard foregrounds collaboration, this book includes new translations alongside canonical ones and intertextual and responsive work from a variety of artist translators at various stages of their careers.

Through their selections, the editors trace Brossard’s fusion of lesbian feminist desire with innovation, experimentation, and activism, emphasizing the more overtly political nature of her early work and its transition into performative thinking.

Devotees of Brossard will be invigorated by the range of previously unavailable materials included here, while new readings will find a thread of inquiry that is more than a mere introduction to her complex body of work. Avant Desire situates Brossard’s thinking across her oeuvre as that of a writer whose sights are always cast toward the horizon.

Futures

THE MARGINAL WAY

from Nicole Brossard: Selections

tr. Jennifer Moxley

the rare and difficult emotions

can they be taken off guard

like a double the sea, surrounding and well-defined

if she is re-engaging with the project

if writing knows because it is real

or facing the landscape (au-delà)

thought is ingratiating, then spatial

the will without option this is

desire, freeing or fictive the history

of the word esprit when she writes

ever more so for those born fluid

already the body trembles in the atmosphere

of beech trees, glass, the compelling echo

– There is no good likeness of me

on the beach/ sur la plage–

the equivalence, still vague (wave) and bright range

is this not being, precisely

likely modernity in the rain

affinity assured

unexpectedly giving reality the slip

light slits the eyes

who then will recognize again

the primal version around the lips which

I will evoke three-dimensionally before

the echo the flight my body is vague (a wave)

an elision moving through several chapters

and still you want to transform le sombre des villes

again, on the beach, stretched out

. . . .

the feeling devastatingly the certainty

bur first she is at the heights

translucent against the outline of lawns

the gestures were subliminal consequence

so I took the landscape in her

for granted double sea binding

the body in the warmth

nor far from the sound of games

the continents succeed each other

in the shadows you think about passion

existence juxtaposed with vision

abridging the surfaces

you construct the day around

a certainty before the sea

the body burns in cerebral

proximity (marks its outline

at the burn horizon) of a line

as follows: the amazon

the intention extreme beauty

you add the landscape to the light

of inclination

the hour is plausible au-delà de la réalité

the cosmic body comes from afar

voie marginale, in a flagrant way

poetry is perfect in the place

of transmission, the multiple faces mapped

such an idea in the atmosphere petite baie rocheuse

by means of pleasure the cliff, the equivalence

the resonance of the water

on this body or twofold way

devastatingly wave (vague)

DO THE READING AND I’LL FOCUS

memory fashions with hope

on the cliff the erosion the dictionary

you chose the language the contrast

so emerge in the bright affirmation

proceeding with your prior gaze

keeping the holographic walk

for fiction

the cliff is not familiar

in shadow

borders harm the gaze

yet I say being circumvents the echo

airborne in the overhead equation

of seas, this syllable here is hope

mon esprit upsets the inherent

she begins at the heart of the spiral

at·the centre of a planetary

burn, she trembles consequence

and future

for whomever is born fluid devours the tides

if in the shadows I think of passion

at the back of fragments in complete tranquility

it’s a feature of reading

a position taken in order to see

the matter at borders split the eyes

I broadcast my existence live

I obstinately stretch out my profile

at the end of the century one day

inflamed in the entity; at the horizon

the abstraction splits the cliff

it reminds me of her to find myself

facing the landscape au-delà du noir

chapter finished she touches you at

infinity’s last possible step

spinning the written

Double impression

1984, tr. 2010

FIELD OF ACTION
FOR NEW FORMS

from Daydream Mechanics

tr. Larry Shouldice

IT’S UNDERSTANDABLE SHE LACKS IMAGINATION

assailed by ideas of this and that how could she avoid them with the increased number of worlds such as consumed taken for granted in the freezing the orbit watching hastened by the forms by labels the name of these things stirring about her going almost without saying coded lurking reference point coupled red / sky taming symbol sign memorized for centuries TO EXORCISE new memory for new perception to communicate

THUS ADOPTING A NEW LANGUAGE

to say new blank memory contradictorily for ancestral memory in the fox-holed skin and I going to amuse learned memories

to perceive are born the versions the VIRTUAL an other memory generates language EXPLOITS it: unheard-of gestures are imminent and running underground like an atmosphere being transmitted code to body code to – unravelled still unclear – code with message to be completed in silence aloud so as to perceive the difference

so that the game will develop cancel out and progress: lettering printing surface: the memory impress recalling right to the image a motion of exchange that fiction effloresces and colours with fancy names

HER LACKING IMAGINATION MAKES HER SUSPECT

illegible but to be verified what is involved the information circulates and has the effect of a rumour she remains subject to credibility to communication but to read how if the name of this game is not written? doubtless reverberated and paled existed answer like the frequency of the looks linked to complicity

AN ACCOMPLICE AND SHE COMMUNICATES

two under the treat of suspicion transmitting on another the premonitory signs of a new involvement of eye and ear, of an other secretion of images and spoken gestures

through a code almost a quality in itself a determinism of the look the slow process preparing the similarity multiple identity / / DEVIATION

NOW IN THIS GAME OF WRITING TO DETERMINE THE REASONS FOR DEVIANCE AND TO EMPHASIZE IT SINCE SOURCE OF KNOWLEDGE

quotation however

‘once past a certain level of tolerance, the variant’s distance from the system is such that the former loses all significance and no longer communicates anything but “its own excentricity”’ mysterious circumstance suggested in sub-title

TO SUPPRESS EXCENTRICITY

WOULD BE TO ABSTAIN

and so to widen the field of tolerance through the frequency of marginal actions until they are perceived signified in the order of transformations – their raison d’être validated by the collective eye

CIRCULAR LANGUAGE

to reduce tension by the repeated use of everyday terms in perspective – which would for example seek the presence of a third party thus concealing the reality of the initial project

SINCE IT ASSERTS THE
OPPOSITE

to make possible the gaps between what exists and what lives at the level of differentiated dissonant language thus anticipating complicity in the interruption

IN ORDER BETTER TO EXPRESS HER
SELF SHE COMMENTS

the attempts to confuse her with the message who the latter makes her necessarily implied like an invasion into the very heart of the images that new memory is no longer able to transcribe to project onto vision overwhelming nocturnal vampire images when she is resting and that she slowly breathes in without remembering

BUT AWAKENED SHE LACKS
IMAGINATION

and multiplies attempts at aggression against the obstacle the opacity which prevents reading – to see it clearly – opaque cutting off the field of vision of communication the imagination lacking DIURNAL ‘The surest sign of the prohibition against certain ideas or certain objects is to be found in the existence of metaphors’

the· gesture she makes – this is her way of attempting despite the sovereign prohibitions to find again a place to reflect open space favourable for calligraphy with marvellous drawings with numberous incursions (infractions) accomplished as such with arrogance then following the course of what is written fount of apprenticeship to pleasure and density – process of composition (vertically the pieces of chalk on the black board!) which she justifies field of action for new forms in the realm of consciousness

SHE LENGTHENS THE NIGHT
THROUGH
HER LACK OF IMAGINATION

night hidden like a chosen term between the intervals of this adaptation she is preparing proposed liaison under the sign of an impression which emerges from the whole before sinking into the desert-like silence or spreading the rumour bothers messages all turned upside down IN THE FRENZY before the dead centre signifies AND THIS LIVED THROUGH WITHOUT FURTHER DIZZINESS

resorting to action words towards the multiplication of reciprocities NOW POSTERED confronting titles verbs even more the information network in the sequence of imprints

link: HOW COULD SHE HAVE

IMAGINATION

with all the slogans she taken with BIG BLACK lettering already extensible language which shrinks in the eye which gigantic when flown above the crowd or she alone taken with posters for THIS the zenith of her lack of imagination would justify perhaps her running away or would let herself stray to consume for the glance the form of words foreign

THE INFINITE NUMBER OF
CONINCIDENCES
SUBSTITUTED FOR THE IMAGINATION

to transmit the substitutions at the same rhythm as the surrounding messages take form the agreed to suggestive memory in the profusion of images THAT SHE IMAGINES to be able to transmit again from one end of the line to the other if necessary coming down on the black lettering

COMMUNICATION BLANK

dividing before the eyes carnal coincidence the code rhythm of execution fusing together in her body THUS SHE GIVES HERSELF UP TO THE IMAGINATION

Méchanique jongleuse

1973, tr. 1980

THE MOST PRECIOUS THINGS IN THE
FUTURE WILL BE WATER, SILENCE,
AND A HUMAN VOICE

from Fluid Arguments

written in English by Nicole Brossard

‘Language cannot do everything.’

–Adrienne Rich

‘We need a silence multiplied by silence.’

– Roberto Juarroz

Good afternoon. It is a real pleasure to be here and a privilege to give this inaugural lecture. Thank you for inviting me. I wrote this speech in English and because of that I will ask for your indulgence if by mistake I come up with unorthodox sentences or expressions.

It is a great pleasure to be back at the University of Western Ontario. The first time I was in London was in 1989 on the occasion of a conference titled: Discours féminin dans la littérature post-moderne du Québec. The second time was to receive an honorary doctorate, which made me very proud. As usual, those visits would start with silent moments at the airport and then on the plane. My face close to the window or leaning over a book and a notebook, I would let my thoughts move their way toward poetry and I would, as sometimes poets do, let my imagination follow its course so I could encounter Laura Secord making her way through the forest or see Margaret Atwood canoeing on an Ontario lake or have a drink with Margaret Laurence in Lakefield.

I don’t know if it is by contrast but knowing that the topic of this conference is on silent moments and ill-communication activates in me the desire to recall and honour the opposite: the brilliant and exciting moments of conversation and communication that I have been experiencing within the feminist and the literary communities of Canada: at the Dialogue Conference/Colloque Dialogue in Toronto (1981), at Women and Words in Vancouver (1983), at the Third Feminist Book Fair in Montréal (1988), and on so many other occasions. Yes, the subject of this conference reminds me by contrast of women and words. lt echoes all that has been said and written by feminists over the last twenty-five years on women who have been silenced in life, history, art, politics, and science. It reminds me of all the work that has been done in order for women to speak loud and clear about their gender, their needs, their desires, their anger, their visions, in order to evade the cultural silence imposed on them. This conference on silent moments and ill-communication definitely reminds me of the moving and vibrant act of speech, cette prise de paroles des femmes nord-américaines et européennes at the end of this second millennium.

lf you will allow me I would like to take a few moments to talk about silence, for this is the word that triggered my positive answer when I received your invitation.

Silence has always been an ally for me. In fact it is an ally for poetry. It provides moments of fullness and of plenitude when the pleasure of feeling alive is at its peak. If, for some people, silence is a synonym for fear and anxiety, for me it is essentially related to poetry and a spiritual quest. Silence has to do with a time-space dimension and gives me a good excuse to believe in eternity no matter what. Silence is about being able to listen to black holes and to do fine with the idea that bones and ashes travel through time, language, and perfect moments. Silence and poetry have a lot in common. In fact I believe that there can be no poetry without silence and the space it allows for concentration, focusing, meditation, for thoughts and emotion. Adrienne Rich, in her book The Dream of a Common Language, has an extraordinary poem titled ‘Cartographies of Silence’ in which she says (and I quote): ‘Silence can be a plan/rigorously executed /the blueprint to a life/It is a presence/it has a history a form /Do not confuse it/with any kind of absence.’

In each culture, silence is meaningful. In each moment of silence, existence takes precedence over culture, for silence projects us in space, pushes us gently in the vast movement of time and its fluidity. In fact, silence reminds us how small we are and nevertheless how good it fee...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• Desirings
• Generations
• The City
• Translations, Retranslations, Transcollaborations
• Futures
• Permissions
• Works by Nicole Brossard
• The Editors
• The Author