Poems — Bernard Pozier

Mar 14, 2025 | Poetry | 0 comments

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY PATRICK WILLIAMSON

 

 

IN MY NOTEBOOK

A page had been skipped
preserving its purity
and all the possibilities

A pencil remained on the table
unused
without realising it

The fibres remained sober
having drunk nothing
ever

Everything was white
everywhere
like a sheet
or winter
or perhaps
the absolute light

 

***

 

MIRRORS OR MIRAGES 

Self-portrait of another,
Élise Turcotte

In ink repeatedly
journeying through the lives of others
phantom silhouettes or fictions
with the known and the unknown
mixed up, invented, recalled
by authors others or friends
also lost in their sentences
so real and so secret
like uncertain biographies
like everyday novels
torn from real as from false
on both sides of the writing
in the finds and losses
that make and unmake
each and every woman
each and every man

 

***

 

SUMMER HUM 

I feel nostalgic
of the point of intersection between shadow and me
Jean Portante 

Who is who
in the kaleidoscope of irises
self or double
reflection of reality or real reflection
hummingbird or butterfly
of the flower, the tree or the leaf
multiple being or mirror image
in the magma and meanders of the world
always grey on the sheen
between black and white, hesitating
the gaze lost somewhere
in a universe created in broad strokes
with small patterns
and tiny clouds
that would make you turn your head
for when the birds are fragrant
flowers fly all around
like invented memories

 

***

 


Also read, The Road to Suicide, written by Romel Rahman, translated into English by Sukti Sarkar, and published in The Antonym.

The Road to Suicide — Romel Rahman


Follow The Antonym’s Facebook page and Instagram account for more content and exciting updates.

About Author

Bernard Pozier

Bernard Pozier

Bernard Pozier is He is the literary director of Écrits des Forges. His most recent books are Naître et vivre et mourir, Carnets de México, Biens et maux, Agonique agenda, Post-scriptum, Le temps bouge la Terre passe and Dérivés. Recently published in other languages are Fragmentos del universo, We are what we love, Agenda de la agonía and Poetas. His manuscript of Ces traces que l’on croit éphémères won the Levée d’encre journal’s award in France in 1988. In 2012, he received the Medal of Recognition from the State of Aguascalientes, Mexico, for his body of work in writing, translating and disseminating Mexican poetry in Quebec, and in 2013, the First Prize for Calaveritas from the Mexican Consulate in Montreal. In 2018, he was awarded the Hugo Gutiérrez Vega Medal. He is a member of the Academic Council of the Mexican festival Letras en la mar and, in France, of the Académie Mallarmé. The texts presented here are taken from a work in progress entitled Figures libres (images hors glace).

About Translator

Patrick Williamson

Patrick Williamson

Patrick Williamson is an English poet and translator. Most recent poetry collections: Traversi (English-Italian, Samuele Editore, 2018), Beneficato (SE, 2015), Gifted (Corrupt Press, 2014), Nel Santuario (SE, 2013; Menzione speciale della Giuria in the XV Concorso Guido Gozzano, 2014). Editor and translator of The Parley Tree, Poets from French-speaking Africa and the Arab World (Arc Publications, 2012) and translator notably of Max Alhau (France), Tahar Bekri (Tunisia), Gilles Cyr (Quebec), as well as Italian poets Guido Cupani and Erri de Luca. Recent translations in Transference, Metamorphoses, The Tupelo Quarterly, and poems in The Black Bough, The Fortnightly Review notably. Longstanding collaborator with artists’ book publisher Transignum, member of the editorial committee of La Traductière, and founding member of transnational literary agency Linguafranca.

  1. Can you please cite the original poem ? Where to find it in Bangla?

0 Comments

Leave a comment

You have Successfully Subscribed!