{"product_id":"a-certain-plume-isbn-9781681372266","title":"A Certain Plume","description":"\u003cb\u003eA bilingual edition of the most famous of Henri Michaux's poetry collections, now in a new translation from the French.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe figure of Plume preoccupied the great Belgian poet Henri Michaux throughout his career. Plume, meaning feather or pen, is a character who drifts from one thing to another, losing shape, taking new forms, at perpetual risk from reality. He is a personification of the imagination as subject to innumerable pratfalls and disgraces, and yet indestructible for all that. In this new bilingual edition, with translations by Richard Sieburth, the entire Plume cycle appears for the first time in English in the form in which Michaux originally published it. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis bilingual edition includes the original French versions of each poem.“Plume is a modern pilgrim, continually on the quest, in a world which  resembles ours but also appears to be the set of a nightmare slapstick.  And Plume resembles us as much as he resembles K., Jack Wilton, Charlie  Brown, Shuman the Human, the Man Without Qualities, and all those  seekers who, when they finally get a chance to address the wise one, are  rewarded with a resounding slap in the face.” —Luc Sante\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e“Monsieur  Plume, the sardonic, off-beat, off-center reflection of his author, a  character equally indebted to Charlie Chaplin and Franz Kafka, is back.  Sieburth’s stunning translation gets all the subtle humor, all the wacky  absurdity, and all the tragicomic pathos of Michaux’s original. An  essential moment in absurdist aesthetics and a sheer delight to read.”  —Cole Swensen\u003cb\u003eHenri Michaux\u003c\/b\u003e (1899–1984) was born in Namur, Belgium,  and educated at a Jesuit school in Brussels. He contemplated entering  the priesthood, turned to medicine, and then, choosing exile instead,  enlisted as a seaman in the merchant marine. Michaux’s travels in the  Americas and Asia\u003cbr\u003einspired his travelogues \u003ci\u003eEcuador\u003c\/i\u003e (1929) and \u003ci\u003eA Barbarian in Asia\u003c\/i\u003e (1933), the latter soon translated by Jorge Louis Borges and Sylvia  Beach. Eventually settling in Paris in the 1920s, the expatriate Michaux  began to write and paint, and his work drew the attention and praise of  influential critics, André Gide and Maurice Blanchot among them. In  1948 Michaux’s wife died after accidentally setting her nightgown on  fire; devastated, he increasingly devoted himself to distinctive  calligraphic drawings. Celebrated around the world for his  accomplishments as a writer and artist, Michaux was averse to publicity  and public honors and in 1965 refused the French Grand Prix National des  Lettres. For many years the only photograph of himself that he allowed  to circulate showed his right hand holding a pen over a sheet of paper  on a chaotic writing desk.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eRichard Sieburth\u003c\/b\u003e teaches at New York University. His previous versions of Henri Michaux include \u003ci\u003eEmergences\/Resurgences\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eStroke by Stroke\u003c\/i\u003e.  He has also published translations from the French of Nostradamus,  Maurice Scève, Louise Labé, Gérard de Nerval, Michel Leiris, Antonin  Artaud, and Eugène Guillevic; and from the German of Oswald von  Wolkenstein, Friedrich Hölderlin, Georg Büchner, Walter Benjamin, and  Gershom Scholem. He has, in addition, edited a number of Ezra Pound’s  works.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLawrence Durrell\u003c\/b\u003e (1912–1990) was a British novelist and travel writer, best known for his Alexandria Quartet.","brand":"NYRB Poets","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302621696229,"sku":"NP9781681372266","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781681372266.jpg?v=1767720341","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/a-certain-plume-isbn-9781681372266","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}