Notebook of Roses and Civilization

The heat of summer on an earlobe, a parking meter, the shadow of crabs and pigeons under a cherry tree, an olive, a shoulder blade – in the poems of Nicole Brossard these concrete, quotidian things move languorously through the senses to find a place beyond language. Taken together, they create an audacious new architecture of meaning.

Nicole Brossard, one of the world’s foremost literary innovators, is known for her experiments with language and her groundbreaking treatment of desire and ge...