et pourtant by Robert Giroux (review)

maladie grave, un deuil, une absence. Alice émerge enfin vers la lumière, à pas feutrés et la voix voilée, Eurydice libérée et triomphante. University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh Yvette A. Young GIROUX, ROBERT. et pourtant. Montréal: Triptyque, 2010. ISBN 978-2-890317-03-1. Pp. 51. $16 Can. The summary on the back cover underscores the doubt—“and yet”—that presides over the collection: the poet explores his suspicion that things and emotions escape language’s ability to express them. The drama plays out in “Le silence, sans voix,” the first of the book’s three sections. In the second, “Tumultes,” confidence in words returns, though tempered by exploration of the fickle intersections between language and the real. The third section, “Les restes,” devoted to “anecdote” and “fait divers,” mocks the poet’s earlier retreat from language. In the very first poem, “S’autoriser,” Giroux establishes his persona: “J’ai encore une si petite expérience de la vieillesse / l’éveil aurait pu venir bien avant peut- être” (11). Aging arouses heightened awareness of language’s precariousness, its instability as point of contact with the real. “Une présence” depicts how our words and images—“Escarbilles égarées / ce battement fou des mots” (12)—lose their way in modern consumer society and go to bits from indiscriminate use, “jusqu’à ne plus pouvoir parler que de ce que / le téléjournal a répété cent fois depuis le matin” (12). Verses crash back into silence, or worse yet, in “Momentum,” dissolve into a “clapotis intérieur” (17). “La leçon de Barthes” praises the critic’s “voie des subtilités frémissantes” and the writerly proliferation of his codes, but can creative language still seize the real with a larger Proustian grasp, “Odeur soudaine de lilas” (20)? Even the traditional affective paths of lyric—“tes amours perdues / les deuils la honte parfois les sourires en coin les yeux”—are sapped by doubt: “Et pourtant...” (21). In the second act, “Tumultes,” Giroux makes the best of the inefficient but adventurous connection between language’s sparks and life’s unprincipled disorder . In “marée marécage mirage,” the poet contemplates life’s muddled expansive “grand fleuve.” He lacks the “agrafes océanes” to convey the world’s totality, yet he need not seek to have “le dernier mot,” since parts of the real will remain forever insignificant: “laissons s’envoler / ce qui ne peut être retenu pour soi seul” (31). This renunciation brings some things back within language’s reach. The poet whistles “les mots qui reviennent / m’habiter”: “Je vais bientôt t’écrire” (32) are his last (Balzacian) words to the river. The poem “Tomahawk, retour de guerre” tenaciously defends besieged lyricism: “ressourcer la lumière oh oui,” “éteindre la guérilla des angoisses et des abandons / colmater les fuites les fissures les pertes” (35). “Charabia” is rich with resonances of Baudelaire: “la vie dans tes cheveux sombres,” “Le violoncelle grince sa tristesse [...] La rumeur se noie à l’archet qui s’obstine” (37–38). It also offers an unexplained secret: what is the “douceur” (37) in the sleeping lover’s hand? This talisman is indescribable, but its magic ushers the poet back to the douceur du foyer: “me sentir comme un enfant / un tout petit enfant sur le trottoir de sa respiration” (39). Yet doubt returns in “Le souffle”: “qu’est cet aujourd’hui qui / murmure et souffle sur tes os poudreux” (43). The last section, “Les restes,” revolves around events that, like poetic language, 222 FRENCH REVIEW 86.1 struggle to achieve fullness, with uneven results. The “musiciens mongols” (47) of “Paris music-hall” wish to captivate the spectator yet fail. The cyclist of “Fait divers” ascends Pinacle cliff in Québec, but the view holds no secret beyond the serenity it affords. “Solfège” depicts a quick, almost impalpable flash (like word images), the phenomenon of the “rayon vert” (49), the very last stab of sunset exhausting its color scale. This poem is also the book’s envoy and silences the clash between language and rebellious referents. After the exuberant expenditure of writing et pourtant, the poet anticipates an “impérative / et violente...