Reading the Poetry of Thomas Vinau (Juste Après la Pluie, 2014)

I have a fondness for shorter poems and “the skinny poem.” I own a number of anthologies edited along these lines and enjoy much of their content. Sometimes one goes outside one’s own language looking for more. That curiosity drew me to read the work of French novelist/poet Thomas Vinau. It drew me in particular to his 2014 collection, Juste Après la Pluie (Alma Editeur), whose title in English would be Just After the Rain.

Vinau was born in 1978 in Toulouse and lives in the foothills of the Luberon Mountains in southern France. That’s technically the French Prealps. (I didn’t even know there was such a concept or word. I didn’t realize the Alps start with baby steps just like the rest of us.) These mostly shorter and skinny poems sometimes namecheck poets, in dedications or in the poems themselves. Poets who appear as mentors include Richard Brautigan, Jim Harrison, Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, Jean Follain and Samuel Beckett. This list of names pretty much makes sense, since you will often catch notes of the styles of those poets in the full-bodied bouquet of Vinau’s syncretic style. The poems in this collection are rangy and don’t mind subverting your expectations that the poet is going to establish any sort of clear and reliable worldview or voice and then grasp it tightly like a cudgel. This book is rather the opposite of that. Maybe I would even call it “against voice.” Some of the poems are straightforwardly aphoristic, some surreal or even sci-fi, some love poems, some hate poems, some koans, some screeds, and so on. It’s a thick volume of skinny poems at almost 270 pages.

I wanted to share a few translations, and my apologies beforehand for any errors in translation or judgment. I had fun doing these. It never ceases to amaze me how some poems go docilely into translation in a way that requires little transposition other than near literal “equivalencies,” while others demand that you almost write a new poem from scratch because the idioms or cultural reference or even just the architecture or mood of the poem demands it. “Traduttore, traditore” does creep up on one; it whispers down one’s neck. This is especially true when one finds oneself wanting to do something as large as substituting one image for another to remain true to the original intent/mood of the poem undergoing translation.

So here are a few (post-)Vinau poems for your consideration.

THE PATH

I followed
the path

the path
led me
behind myself

(On this next poem, I wanted to put white space in the middle of each line but wasn’t sure how or if that formatting is even possible on this site.)

ALL IN GOOD TIME

to see more clearly I close my eyes
to truly wake up I lie down
to get there faster I slow down
to exchange I give
to speak I am silent
to learn I do
to advance I freeze
to create I destroy
to know I forget
to hold on I let go

Some of the poems have an almost child-like voice. Maybe the subject here is adult romantic love. Or maybe it is the clumsier love a very young child has for a parent. It’s pretty open.

ELEPHANT

You’re the drunken elephant
noshing on the flowers
that root deep in my heart

I’m just a scent
this perfume of crushed peonies
when you trample me

Another poem that seems to operate like that is below. One wonders
whether the end of the poem describes horripilation or arousal.

GIRAFFE TROOPS

shiver of a breeze
through a spiderweb
the ghost print
of a wet foot
a wasp
in its armor
the whisper of tomorrow
the meaningless
prickle of gooseflesh
little hairs on our arms
become tiny troops
of giraffes

INSIDE

Inside
lives a bear
who bites the heads off fishes
with the loving affection
of a mother

And there is a poem seemingly on parenting.

DROP BY DROP

We have only two arms two hands
one head and one heart
how could that possibly
be enough
to console a boy
for becoming a man

I have fondness for his tiny mystical poems like this one…

RAY

between the wall
and the shutter
the immense

Often, the poems are cosmically humorous and feel almost like drawings by Dubuffet.

OR NEARLY

From the end
of its grotesque
beak
a bird
or nearly one
pulls
an invisible thread
and the sky
just all of it
comes crashing
down

ANVIL SKY

this metallic
moment
between day
and night
this silence
of the last
branches
as they eat
the light

A HEN AND A BABY

a hen
and a baby
stare deeply
into each other’s eyes
it’s possible
a number of universes
are being born
just now

DESERT

Here only baked earth
I savagely guard
a small morsel of cloud
between my dreams my teeth

BANANA PEEL

this banana peel
tossed, rotting
on a low wall
gives me
a strange impression
of outspread wings
ready to fly away

WHAT GOOD

oh what good
to resist
dissolution
oblivion
and memory
are two sides
of the same stone
which sinks
which sinks
which sinks
all the way
to the bottom
of the night
into the sludge
and the slime
what good to consider
books you read
fruits your teeth
sank into
pressed butterflies
that stone
retains the savor
of the wind
that caressed it
it will rejoin
the other stones
where the water
will forget it
and at the bottom
the fish
will go on
stupidly biting
at the hook

EMPTY-HANDED

you
who no longer come
the rain
which does not fall
the words
which do not occur to me
I await
these somethings
and I return home
empty-handed
after the long
tribute march
into the empty center
of this day

INTIMATE

some purple teases
in the black fabric
an icy sparkle
catches the eye
in white tulle
turning pink now
heaven modeling
skimpy lingerie
the day begins

COCKTAIL

Using sun
mixed with proteins
and some salty tears
the corner bartender
has just invented
a new cocktail
The Earth

DELICATE CRASH

A grandmother
and a small child
have fallen asleep

look, it’s one face