Translations from the Bernard Noël issue of Givre

Bernard Noël importance, as I've declared elsewhere before, is of the highest sort in my personal appreciation of art. He manages to use a linguistic poetry of the body to probe the impossible. While there is much more of his own work to consider, I've taken upon the task of instead translating shorter works from the issue of Givre dedicated to the man and his work; as such this is not the work OF Noël, but rather work for, or about, or to Noël. I suppose more will come as I work through it, but at the moment here is all I have that feels complete. My mode of translation is its own beast, and perhaps not entirely true to the original text at points, but more my mode of translation has to do with how I am personally encountering the work in its totality...

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[paraphrase of secrecy] by Unknown


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Thus the reading of the texts of Bernard NOEL is a dangerous action, not so much on the moral plane — which would not have much interest — but in a more extraordinary way, on the physical plane. It is perhaps the first time that, in the history of writing, the reader risks something by reading: to not stand intact of his reading. Physically, one plays with his health. And should we imagine that it is necessary to label the texts of B. Noël like one would label prescription pills: advice of use, a dosage and the inscription in red: "Do not exceed the dose..."

          Stop this language
          Finish your mouth
          Don't think the mouthful.
You resist. You refuse it.
You multiply the excuses: it's too much, you're not used to it...
But you know that you hide behind a rampart of words.
You put them one on top of the other, as you have always been taught.
It's the rampart which protects you. You cling to it.
You put your back against it
and you push with all your force.

And yet you would like it to crack.
You hope for it, but we're holding you back.
                                                            Touch your mouth
                                                            Take your tongue
                                                            Find your language
Set your voice like a bomb.

* * *
Untitled by Jean Vasca²

A cry haunts the memory of the world
A nail planted far into the nights of our flesh
Hurling an impossible dawn

Men of revolt
Men of pain
Bonfires spreading down the centuries
You are crossing the Story of red birds

And we
At this hour in this place
In our closed off bodies
And in our dead languages
And we
Disarticulated in reflective voids

WHEN WILL WE LOSE THE MANIC?

*** NOTES ¹I'm not sure who this is by, the journal makes it unclear, pg 92
²pg 126