Canadian Literature calls Notebook of Roses and Civilization 'risky and refreshing'

Robert Mazjels' and Erin Moure's generous translation of Nicole Brossard's Notebook of Roses and Civilization ... proves that the Quebecois poet's sensuous syntactical experiments resonate in English as well as in French. It's no surprise this text was short-listed for the Griffin Prize: Brossard's perspective is daring, willing to risk unexpected juxtaposition of 'syntax and paintings,' 'cars and fiction,' and 'seashells and reality.' The poems echo with the experience of a world made luminous by desire: 'balancing on the tip of an I / suspended by the feverish joy of July / or salivating before the dark / of a present filled with whys.'

Brossard's collection offers few answers; her poems, rather, revel in the immediacy and indeterminacy of the body's physical present. Feeding all the senses, Brossard engages us 'far beyond crude words' to explore the 'fragments of happiness that traverse the body ... elsewhere and in the wild blue yonder.' The text's three 'soft links' are Steinian portraits that infuse the life of everyday objects - slices of bread and cheese, legs and elbows, ice cubes at cocktail hour, a chamois on a windshield - with domestic eros. The deft, understated lyric sequences, 'Notebook of Roses and Civilization' and 'Blue Float of Days,' interspersed between these prose poems investigate a reality restarted by the female - dare I say feminist? - gaze. In fact, what is most remarkable about this collection is Brossard's ability to articulate feminist identity politics within a classically feminine architecture of roses, summer evenings, and the scent of jasmine. The combination is risky and refreshing and illustrates Brossard's uncanny talent for, time and again, making it new.