Fables of Town and Country by Pierre Coran and translated by Norman Shapiro

This is poetry from Belgium.

Fables of Town and Country by Pierre Coran translated by Norman Shapiro is published by Commonwealth Books, Black Widow. This is a Book originally written in French. This was published in 2017.0 and has the ISBN of 9.780997172539E12.

Fables of Town and Country, by Belgian writer Pierre Coran and translated by Norman Shapiro, suggests a poetry of story, wit, and moral weather. Fables are rarely innocent. They use animals, villages, households, and comic turns to smuggle in judgment about human life. The title’s pairing of town and country gives the book a broad social stage: urban appetite beside rural memory, public life beside older forms of speech. Shapiro’s translations often foreground rhyme, clarity, and formal play, which seems fitting for a poet working in a fabulist mode. I would read this book less as light verse and more as a reminder that play can be one of poetry’s sharpest tools. A fable smiles, then quietly rearranges the room.

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.