English translation copyright Angela Carr, 2015 Original text Nicole Brossard, 2008 First English edition. Originally published in French as
Ardeur in 2008 as a co-edition by ditions Phi and crits des Forges.
We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the National Translation Program for Book Publishing, an initiative of the Roadmap for Canadas Official Languages 20132018: Education, Immigration, Communities, for our translation activities. Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund. LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION Brossard, Nicole, 1943 [Ardeur.
English] Ardour / Nicole Brossard ; Angela Carr, translator. Translation of: Ardeur. Poems. ISBN 978-1-55245-322-3 (paperback). I. Title. III. III.
Title: Ardeur. English. PS8503.R7A7613 2015 C841'.54 C2015-905046-4 Ardour is available as an ebook: ISBN 978 1 77056 420 6 Purchase of the print version of this book entitles you to a free digital copy. To claim your ebook of this title, please email . (Coach House Books reserves the right to terminate the free digital download offer at any time.) think of your life without it Anne Carson
CONTENTS
what would difference be a repeated gesture in the shadow of the species what would it usually be in a moment our mouths if we could make out my side our side in the hollows of living languages who said that to burn relieves matter or emptiness anger or me or you who did not say melancholy at point-blank range in the sounding of time its that life devours characters and carapaces the whole dream the capacity for dialogue now that youve said to dream in the midst of
toujours uproots presence instead today the unnameable dispels the idea of classifying humanity in its multitude and salty vertigo at the edge of the abyss the business of hope all that im watching for inwardly we say raw consolation bush of traditions embracing the cities youthful names sprout of feline strength lets stay close to our roots proficient with knots and ardour regarding dogs lets say barking wanders we are here to speak in the multitude of wounds mouths and clean-sweeping pronouns in the darkness an intoxicating slowness and immobility ardour the question of ardour the hands movement the aerial movement of intoxication pastel soul tint lets try to side with the sobbing immerse our ardour in questions and cherries this way of staying in the shadow scarlet mouth bursting with names today i acquiesce lets make time for torment eyes yearning for the wind round number of sensations when it is necessary i age in verbless sentences attentive to the rocks pink profile before the sea and all the oxygen, the archives hazelnut shadow in september there will be there was always ignorance who should i embrace this morning between changing affections and the hard pits of words something like wait for me in the braille of scars tonight can i suggest a little punctuation circle half-moon vertical line of astonishment a pause that transforms light and breath into language and threshold of fire a desire to bite into abundance of sincere selves between books and screens i say so to hold on until morning with clipped words at dawn an ellipse raised like an eyebrow lets awaken night in its familiar curve awaken gestures as if were about to enter history and cafs at full speed seeming powerful we escape time vanishing point embedded in our mirrors rare are the books that sweep across the back of dawn from a word small horizon of pain that tramples small click rose flavour a single question between kisses now no one can clearly recall the colour of silence before the alphabets intersected and the former purpose of melancholys curtains i stay out of reach with no one around murmuring or counting the bones the cruelty by instinct i roll in dark matter i smooth the heat i want all tastes to last in nature, crab claws urchins ready to roll on in fiction at any time of day and in darkness silence of starting again then i find myself turning my back on the planets depending on the sounds of intimate speech or to say farewell following the light schools of sardines of dolphins of sharks struggling with dawn drowning i find myself retracing the flow of time gaze blurred by the breakneck speed of the universe for the seas blue wounds and embraces i wanted to chart slow responses the true obscurity of absences gaps to translate in circular dreams repetitions the horizon line for each generation on a small scale what fascinates if not repetition the same
us divided among the paradoxes of art and the illiterate density of hands and guns dark cell knife to the throat the world carries on we bid each other farewell eyelids slowing between apparitions so im not getting used to the darkness of soldiers and archives i dont know in what order to recount civilizations opacity the grey taste of excess consumption what can i say not to harm the future and not to trample beyond lets go: old abyss of the horizon noon behind the nape torrent of griefs and sparks the voice regains its rhythm on the threshold of immobility my nature between two sentences how to appease with a single gesture whoever cries fully in darkness toward what angle of destruction are we going to remember to lift tenderness nights curtain a diagonal before forgetfulness? we call it sound of beauty the sea fused with salt in the neverending night beyond all narratives we also call sound of beauty the silence its slow signature at the bottom of dawn that night we said it centuries of metaphor would go on the same impulse be stranded ashore on crumbling landscapes our muscles suddenly trembling to recall the word of mouth old language trotting in the coolness so long sought in eternitys paragraphs magic of crossing bridges menu fragment of hereafter who are we to desire still across metaphors of collision contrasts in fleeting silk of dawn and joy its not wise to say devour or burn directly from our pink existence its not wise to join a civilization of butchers and inquisitors of course, there are the missing women who loved children, museums, olives our civilization a little but above all hope with its paradoxes and perpetual life of course all thats in the future i must imagine it sincere hands undo it, start again not so much rage or death vertiginous slope in the middle, life, grand cru how dare say again my core drowned among syllables and believe to light thus the fecund slope of the other me her arms tireless with creation
bestiality equivocates dying and its vocabulary full of debris who then wants to drown the carcass a great cry, not the night always the fervour of culture transforms the species within us, deploys it speech recumbent in our joints from far away we say: thats the planet thousands of works backs turned to night thousands of unclassifiable gestures in the oceans depths and in the contours of war thousands of bodies and we want abbreviations? but i am vast when all is pounding slaughter within us we are alive to the very end with the idea of kissing and in the head tirelessly humanity humid hurricane such opulence and its abyss we are still there book in hand its afternoon, we should speak of the present in miniature reflect on the details human remains or abundance acquiesce if someone trembles we are still there its insensitive to ask these questions of memory and the absolute its insensitive to drown in dawn as many faces and breathing in light time all this violence that comes to the tips of fallen arms hands below the nape its the least of things to say see you tomorrow comparing the century and collected nights lets start again: im flexible
