Face before against by Isabelle Garron and translated by Sarah Riggs

This is poetry from France.

Face before against by Isabelle Garron translated by Sarah Riggs is published by Litmus Press. This is a Book originally written in French. This was published in 2008.0 and has the ISBN of 9.781933959047E12.

Face Before Against, by Isabelle Garron and translated by Sarah Riggs, is a title built from prepositions and pressure. A face is never just an image; it is relation, exposure, recognition, and vulnerability. Before and against both place the body in space, but differently: one suggests encounter, the other resistance. Garron’s French poetry, in Riggs’s English, likely asks readers to attend to syntax as a site of emotional and philosophical tension. I would read this book for its grammar of proximity, for the way a face can become a field where self and other meet without resolving. The title is not smooth, and I’m grateful for that. It leaves the reader slightly off balance before the poem even begins.

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.