Absolute bob by Anne Portugal and translated by Jennifer Moxley

This is poetry from France.

Absolute bob by Anne Portugal translated by Jennifer Moxley is published by Burning Deck/Anyart. This is a Book originally written in French. This was published in 2010.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781936194025E12.

Absolute Bob, by Anne Portugal and translated by Jennifer Moxley, is a title that feels delightfully resistant to solemnity. It sounds comic, conceptual, and faintly absurd, which is often a good doorway into serious experimental poetry. Portugal’s French work is associated with linguistic play and procedural intelligence, and Moxley’s translation likely keeps the poems from being over-smoothed into conventional lyric. I would read this book for the pleasure of not knowing exactly what kind of object one is holding. “Bob” might be name, sound, gesture, or decoy. The absolute might be philosophical or ridiculous. That instability is the point. Poetry here becomes a testing ground for how language can be playful without becoming weightless.

If you’d like to see international poetry continue and gain traction, consider requesting this work from your local library, or purchasing it from places like Open Books (a poetry only bookstore), Asterism Books (an independent press distributor), or bookshop.org to connect you with your local bookstores.

Check out more of the always in-progress translated poetry index here.