Archaic Design

Joyce Mansour is one of my favorite poets, and pretty much everything is included here in bilingual side-by-side fashion. The book isn't perfect, however. The translations by Gavronsky are truly benign and only serve to occasionally aid the reader in reference. I'm fairly certain she translated most of her own poetry into English, so why the Gavronsky translations are favored I can't quite say. Not that poetry ever really translates well, but anyone unable to read the French and intending to read the English specifically will hardly even get the flavor of her brilliance. These Black Widow editions are a bit lacking overall, with only a couple photographs of Mansour to illustrate the volume, while the translator taunts the reader in the introduction by listing all the fabulous artists to illustrate her books in the past. A more thoughtful collection is certainly needed, and well deserved, but to have access to such a vast selection of Mansour's brilliant verse is truly worth five stars.

The power and the moving perceptions of Mansour's poetry is remarkable. Read the poems in French and then read them in English, They are finely tuned and nuanced definitions of who and what we are.

Joyce Mansour is a great surprise to find and read anywhere. Her books arescarcely known and expensive to buy in the original French editions. Hers are considered like pieces from a Modern Art collection. And she's definitively hard to get in English.Mr Serge Gavronsky must be praised for trying to render this "sister ofthe wind" into English. But this book fails to show his devotion to thereal task in front of him. Maybe someone else will make it happen in the future. Two black-and-white pictures of Joyce Mansour plus the cover make the book a thing to hold dearly, but that's it. His introduction is unreadable and incoherent, adding nothing to the poems and saying so muchtoo little about the poet's life.Also, in his list of books dedicated to her or not, Mr Gavronsky forgot to mention Mary Beach's 1978 beautiful translation of Mansour's "Flash Card"(in French CARRE BLANC). Why include so much from this title and notLES DAMNATIONS, for example, or HISTOIRES NOCIVES, of which there's nothing in English? Neither does he mention two interesting anthologies (The "Penguin Book of Women Poets" and the "Anthology of Contemporary French Poetry" with superb small selections of Mansour in them) that are worth reading, or Mr Albert Herzing's 1979 translation of RAPACES as BIRDS OF PREY and out of print. Bilingual edition to only just the poetry section. Much is missing from her complete original work and there are no illustrations to any of the stories.Finally, few misprints and incorrectness are there for all to see inthis edition. Joyce Mansour deserves BETTER and so her NEW reader!

Serge Gavronsky has done an admirable job presenting a varied selection of one of the near unknown (in the US), but most important of the female surrealists. Her poetry, so modern and erotically charged, was not published by any US publisher in the 1950's through 1970's, and it is good to finally see a critical anthology of her work available in a bilingual edition. Having read Gavronsky's two other smaller books of translations of Mansour's poems as well as his other writings on Mansour I would have to heavily disagree with a prior review who states with a blanket statement "poorly translated." Gavronsky is a well known poet in France and an able poet/translator. I think the compilation is a marvelous overview and more than ably, in fact, poetically adept translation, as one will find out as it is bilingual and one can translate/reason for oneself. Four hundred pages plus of Mansour is a treat no matter how one looks at it.

Finally a very good one volume English language edition of Mansour's works. 349 pages of the 430 pages are bilingual (all the poems)which is always useful. Mansour previously had but small snippets of her work in English language anthologies and small English language chap books or small press printings. For those who are completionists, all of her work is available in one French Language only volume compiled by Hubert Nyssen in 1991. This massive tome (640+pages)has sadly gone out of print and is now expensive. A recent Mansour biography by Missir in 2005 (French only) is a treat as well. Gavronsky has chosen well from amongst Mansour's many books, emphasizing, I think rightly, the poetry. Everyone will have their favorites that they will feel might have been left out but such is the nature of anthologies/compilations. Gavornsky knew the Mansours, has published other books on Mansour, and has written extensively about her for the last 20 years. The poems are very well translated capturing Mansour's nuances (especially in the erotically charged poems)in a way some earlier translations did not. One is always shocked by Mansour that these poems were written in the 1950's-60's. They feel and read fresh and modern as anything written today. Gavronsky has proven once again that he is both an able poet and a compelling translator. His introduction is conversational and anecdotal (sometimes a bit rambling)and at the end of it he shows by listing most major press publications concerning French poetry/poets in English and how Mansour was really ignored from the 1950's until the 1990's. I am glad she is no longer another statistic, this book should help spread her name to more parts of the world. An "essential" addition to any Mansour or French poetry library.

Joyce brings elegance to surrealism