Fences in Breathing Read online

  A few moments ago, we saw an aurora borealis, a phenomenon quite rare if not impossible at this latitude. Yet there it was, flaunting its curves, its breathing, its all-powerful choreography of arabesques. Tatiana leaned over to me: ‘You can see, can’t you, that time is visible. Just look at those watches in the armoire. The time you spend watching time makes it visible. Surely you’re aware that time is a great curved horizon that barely separates us from our origins.’ It was at that moment that the first curves of the aurora borealis appeared. Kim and June joined us with piping-hot tea, which we sipped slowly. The sound of the cups being put down onto saucers, the movement of the little spoons tapping against the edge of the china, nicked the silence. It was still possible for our dazzled eyes to embrace the blackness of northern-hemisphere nights.

  Every day now, in my mind, I am sitting in the garden imagining the present. As though it were my true nature, I am starting to want to touch the invisible part of myself. I am tenacious in the landscape. I would love to be able to give darkness a new name.

  The war is still raging over the Northwest Passage. I am everywhere I am. I don’t dare write: I am frozen, fossilized in combat position.

  NOTES

  The epigraphs are from the following publications:

  Page 7: Alessandro Baricco, translated by Alastair McEwen, Ocean Sea (New York: Knopf, 1999).

  Page 11: Joë Bousquet, Le meneur de lune (Paris: Albin Michel, 1946/1998). Quote translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood.

  Page 51: François-René de Châteaubriand, Mémoires d’outretombe (Paris: Penaud Frères éditeurs, 1849). Quote translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood.

  Page 73: Louky Bersianik, Axes et eau, poèmes de « la Bonne Chanson » (Montréal: VLB éditeur, 1984). Quote translated by Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood.

  Page 103: Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by Stephen Mitchell, ‘The Eighth Elegy,’ The Duino Elegies in The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke (New York: Vintage, 1982).

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Nicole Brossard thanks the Foundation Ledig-Rowohlt for the three weeks spent writing in Le Château de Lavigny.

  Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood warmly thanks the Canada Council for the Arts for making this adventure possible through their financial support. Also, big big thanks to Alana Wilcox for her unfailing editorial presence and brilliant attention to detail. And of course, to Nicole Brossard for trusting me, once again, with what matters.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Nicole Brossard was born in Montreal in 1943. Since 1965, she has published more than thirty books, including Museum of Bone and Water, The Aerial Letter and Mauve Desert. Her contribution and influence to Quebec and francophone poetry is major. Brossard has twice been awarded the Governor General’s Award for Poetry, first in 1974 and again ten years later. In 1965, she co-founded the literary periodical La barre du jour and, in 1976, the feminist journal Les têtes de pioche. That same year, she co-directed the movie Some American Feminists. She was also awarded the Prix Athanase-David, Quebec’s highest literary distinction. In 2006, she won the Canada Council’s prestigious Molson Prize for lifetime achievement. Most of her books have been translated into English and Spanish and many others in different languages. Her collection Notebook of Roses and Civilization was shortlisted for the 2008 Griffin Poetry Prize. Her most recent book is an anthology of her work edited by Louise Forsyth, Mobility of Light. Nicole Brossard lives in Montreal.

  ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

  Susanne de Lotbinière-Harwood lives in Montréal, her home-town. She is the auther of Re-belle et infidèle: la traduction comme pratique de ré-écriture au féminin / The Body Bilingual : translation as a rewriting in the feminine (Remue-ménage/Women’s Press, 1991), and of many texts about her practice of both literary and art text translation. As a translator she has co-authered numerous works of theory and fiction, into English and into French, and was shortlisted for the Governor-General’s Award in 2005. Her practice has led to parallel art experiences, such as years of ‘’performative lecturing’ in North America and Europe, and an exhibition of her art text translation artefacts (Galerie La Centrale/Powerhouse, Montréal, 2001). After teaching for two decades, she is now figuring out what being retired means. This is her fourth Nicole Brossard book.

  Typeset in Jenson

  Printed and bound at the Coach House on bpNichol Lane, 2009

  Translated by Lotbinière-Harwood

  Edited and designed by Alana Wilcox

  Cover image, Ellipsis 01, by Christine Davis, courtesy of the artist and the Olga Korper Gallery

  Coach House Books

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  Toronto, Ontario M5S 2G5

  416 979 2217

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