{"id":21729,"date":"2013-01-17T18:58:03","date_gmt":"2013-01-17T18:58:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2013\/01\/17\/eternity-eugene-guillevic\/"},"modified":"2013-01-17T18:58:03","modified_gmt":"2013-01-17T18:58:03","slug":"eternity-eugene-guillevic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/2013\/01\/17\/eternity-eugene-guillevic\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Eternity,’ Eug\u00e8ne Guillevic"},"content":{"rendered":"

asuddenline<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n
\n

(trans. Denise Levertov)<\/span>

<\/span>Eternity<\/span>
never was lost.<\/span>

<\/span>What we did not know<\/span>

<\/span>was how to translate it into days,<\/span>
skies, landscapes,<\/span>

<\/span>into words for others,<\/span>

<\/span>authentic gestures.<\/span>

<\/span>But holding on to it for ourselves,<\/span>
that was not difficult,<\/span>

<\/span>and there were moments<\/span>
when it seemed clear to us<\/span>
we ourselves were eternity.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Eug\u00e8ne Guillevic\u00a0<\/strong>(1907-1997) was a French poet, often just known as \u2018Guillevic.\u2019 His poetics were something like the Imagists, without ever being aligned to that movement: he deliberately eschewed (most) metaphors, believing in direct descriptions or comparisons.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s something tricky in reading his poetry, in that it can be\u00a0simultaneously\u00a0deeply symbolic and completely literal. The question when reading \u2018Eternity,\u2019 for example, is exactly what Guillevic means by the word. I read it as being something akin to \u2018nature\u2019 or \u2018the universe\u2019: the whole of existence, since time began. Presuming that the \u2018we\u2019 refers to writers, then, it suggests the difficulties of writing about primordal forces, and a conflict between the individual poet and the collective unconsciousness.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

asuddenline: (trans. Denise Levertov)Eternitynever was lost.What we did not knowwas how to translate it into days,skies, landscapes,into words for others,authentic gestures.But holding on to it for ourselves,that was not difficult,and there were momentswhen it seemed clear to uswe ourselves were eternity. Eug\u00e8ne Guillevic\u00a0(1907-1997) was a French poet, often just known as \u2018Guillevic.\u2019 His poetics were … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “‘Eternity,’ Eug\u00e8ne Guillevic”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21729","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21729"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21729\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.augustwritesabook.com\/tumblr-backup\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}