Jaccottet, Philippe: Patches of Sunlight, or of Shadow: Safeguarded Notes, 1952-2005

Description

Translated John Taylor (Seagull Books, hardcover)

Publication Date:February 13, 2021

Publisher Marketing:Philippe Jaccottet’s newest work follows in some ways the approach ofSeedtime, his recent two-volume collection of notebooks. Similarly comprising on-the-spot jottings, philosophical reflections, literary commentary, dream narratives and sundry “notes,” this book nonetheless differs from the preceding volumes in that the Swiss poet includes more personal material than ever before. Drawing on unpublished notebooks from the years 1952-2005, Jaccottet offers here passages about his family, the death of his father-in-law and of his mother, his encounters with other major poets–such as Ren Char, Francis Ponge, Jean Tardieu, and his friends Yves Bonnefoy and Andr du Bouchet–and his trips abroad, as well as, characteristically, his walks in the countryside around the village of Grignan, in the south of France, where he has lived since 1953. For a poet who has been notoriously discreet about his life, this book offers unexpected glimpses of the private man. Above all, the entries in this notebook show how one of the greatest European poets grapples with the discouraging elements of existence, counterbalancing them by recording fleeting perceptions in which “something else,” almost like a threshold, seems present.