Mobility of Light: The Poetry of Nicole Brossard - Paperback

by Nicole Brossard (Author), Louise H. Forsyth (Editor)

"On strands of light I am hanging poetry like garlands."

These first words of poetry from Nicole Brossard anticipate the vast body of work she has published in the last four decades. The poems in Mobility of Light were chosen by Louise H. Forsyth to elicit a sense of these whirling garlands and convey the intense energy-physical, creative, spiritual, erotic, imaginative, playful, ethical, and political-that has carried Brossard to a uniquely significant vision of the human spirit.

Poems are presented in French and English on facing pages, underscoring the density of meaning in each word and line and highlighting the unusual rhythms in Brossard's originals and the extraordinary sonorities with which they beat. Some of the translations in this volume have been previously published, while others are new. In her afterword, Brossard talks about travelling back in time to discover how our most vivid sensations, emotions, and thoughts are nourished and transformed by our enigmatic relation to language.

Author Biography

Nicole Brossard published her first collection of poetry in 1965. The national and international influence of her thirty collections of poetry, ten novels, four book-length essays, and numerous theoretical articles has been enormous. Her latest work in translation, Notebook of Roses and Civilization, was shortlisted for the 2008 Griffin Poetry Prize.
Louise H. Forsyth was the chair of the French department at the University of Western Ontario, dean of Graduate Studies and Research at the University of Saskatchewan, and president of the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences. Her academic specializations are contemporary Quebec women poets and playwrights, and she has recently edited Nicole Brossard: Essays on Her Works and Anthology of Québec Women's Plays in English Translation, Vol. I (1966--1986) and Vol. II (1987--2003).