Volin, Pierre: To Each Unfolding Leaf: Selected Poems (1976-2015)

Description

To Each Unfolding Leaf: Selected Poems (1976-2015) by Pierre Volin.Translated from the French by John Taylor(The Bitter Oleander Press, paperback)

Publication Date: April 21, 2017

Publisher Marketing:Poetry. Bilingual edition. This book offers a representative selection of Pierre Volin’s poetry, ranging from his early booksSur la mort brve / On Brief Death(1984) andLes Bois calms / The Calmed Woods(1987) to recent works such asY.(2015) andDes voix dans l’autre langue / Voices in the Other Language(2015). In other words, sinceLa Nuit osseuse (The Bony Night)section ofOn Brief Deathwas written during the years 1976-1980, this SELECTED POEMS spans four decades and reveals the Swiss poet’s recurrent themes of amorous exaltation (and loss), an individual’s relationship to nature (and especially to a rural environment), the possibilities of a spiritual quest in the contemporary world, as well as the writer’s role (or vulnerability) with respect to political iniquity or persecution. Up to now, Volin has remained very little known in English-speaking countries. Yet he is one of the most important figures in contemporary Swiss francophone poetry. Born in 1949 in the village of Courgenay and then raised in the nearby small town of Porrentruy, both of which are located in the hilly Jura region of Switzerland, Volin is a key poet in a generation that also comprises Frdric Wanderlre (b. 1949), Franois Deblu (b. 1950), Jos-Flore Tappy (b. 1954), and Sylviane Dupuis (b. 1956). It is a generation that has sometimes chosen thematic directions differing from those taken by their Swiss mentors, namely Anne Perrier (b. 1922), Philippe Jaccottet (b. 1925) and Pierre Chappuis (b. 1930), and that has conceived new poetics to continue to question man’s place in the cosmos.