Isabelle Garron
Body Was: Suites & Their Variations, 2006-2009.
Litmus Press, 2021. First edition. Translation by Elena Rivera of "Corps fut" (Flammarion, 2011). 9781933959511 279 pages.
Softcover volume, measuring approximately 5.25" x 8", is new.
""Body Was" is a book-length poem that begins with the death of a father and ends with the birth of a child. It is a bold and innovative poem that works on principles of improvisation, like those of Keith Jarrett and other jazz greats, where the reader is drawn into a series of movements that rise and fall like waves. The poem is divided into six "Suites," each with its own "Variation," each with its notations, echoes and silences, all the while maintaining the poem's forward movement. Isabelle Garron is able to capture the mind's motions, its fleeting thoughts, its fragmentations, shedding light on past and future, while at the same time showing the clarity of a present breaking in."