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      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
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      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
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      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
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      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
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      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
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Poems by ​Claude Ber

What remains

What sometimes remains I call a poem
as each time a poem is only
what remains once
after
before
or nothing remains
what memory remains in the body and what words remain to say once the racing words which listen to themselves are silenced
– by default maybe but it is the word that remains – like
from here where I write without knowing what will remain or even if it will remain
like
for instance once deserted and unpeopled
– at last – the name
what remains is only
what remains after subtraction
– when to write is to subtract and in that withdrawal grasp –
it may sometimes
be
what remains of poetry
As to what remains of a poem or whether anything remains at all, I sometimes feel concerned, as though my death were spoken although I know both speech and my death are indifferent. I feel concerned in spasms of body and consciousness, but otherwise never. Otherwise anger sweeps me as though I were under threat from the asphyxia generated by systems with their orthodoxies and anathemas. Unfair as this may be, who cares. I have preferred mystics to the devout and silence to dogma. Thus I speak few words and cross them out immediately until nothing is left or next to nothing. The laceration of much that I would say and the pain are what remains of my past with philosophy. Some fragments of Wittgenstein’s notebooks and Spinoza’s definition of good as an increase in being and evil as a decrease in being,
is what remains
with a poem
with a poem especially
like a highly difficult highly cautious attempt at reconciliation
 
as I so fear what is said of and what is said about
like an attempt at speech
which ceases to
and the cessation
what remains once the tyranny of speech is over
is what I call a poem

Anyhow, what remains I can hear, those who remain
listen to your death in words
which removes speech from speech
and what remains when you are among those who remain and yourself what remains
is such nothingness of speech
lack of language in the absence that language already is
hole within a hole
that
the words which speak the emptiness and lack fill it
like
shovelfuls of earth fill a grave
and the remaining words fill my mouth
like
earth fills yours

What remains of you
for instance your feet so stiff
we couldn’t slip on your shoes
I remember those ill-fitting shoes
and it worries me
that I couldn’t straighten your ill-fitting shoes
like
you needed to walk
like
you were walking
yet your arms and hands were warm and soft
two days later even
and I arranged them
like
you wanted
such is my memory
of which nothing will remain

What remains may be too much
too silent and too prolix for a mouth
what remains is not silent it’s mute
and the sky travels the sky
motionlessly

What remains of the dead
is also the cleaning-up of the dead
after father’s lonely death I cleaned up
clothes linen crockery papers things
sort toss out take tidy away
the cleaning-up of death I then did for more distant relatives: the same with the linen, clothes, furniture and even for a very old dead lady who had died unexpectedly of a heart attack in mid-July and was removed by the fire brigade two days later, cleaning up the first maggots: fat white maggots scurrying on the tiles where the body had been
the same linen, crockery, furniture, papers
now the cleaning-up of you
so unthinkable
and the same for what remained of you and of all your, our...
linen clothes papers books
a whole year it took
the cleaning-up of your death
emptying bag after bag
myself emptied also
bag after bag
and now that we should sell the house where the remains of the dead were left and I’m emptying everything it’s
like
having to do the cleaning-up after my own death

Poems also
remain of you
and I believe triumphant: once the cleaning-up of the dead is over, poems are what remain for those who remain
and I sort fragments and debris of poems in old wrinkled folders, yours, mine
I reread crossed-out phrases, still legible
– this is to erase, truly erase all traces and so that nothing remains you and I both overwrite them with a thick black line and it’s also so that nothing remains that I write directly on the computer as much as possible, no more crossings-out, no traces, nothing, death smooth, the illusion of eternity intact
ultimately, nothing –
But what remains, these unfulfilled scraps of text and even those that are fulfilled, these remains I gather it’s
like
collecting mortal remains
and what might have been emotional, the traces of what we are, or celebratory, the traces of the remains on birthday tables or in the sheets of intimate celebration, all of this sinks with the rest
and what remains is death

In what remains, I hear those who remain
and I remain with the inventory of what remains of you of us, memory a prolific game-bag though filled with dead birds
so much remains remains remains that
I wish I could say all that remains out of my mouth armfuls of ribbons doves hares embers scarves
in unimaginable quantities
unbelievable what remains of a life
the hugeness in memory
I wish I could say
all the hugeness subtracted
I must say all this actually no
words are made obscene by death
what remains belongs to me who half belong to death
and what remains of my life at this point is your death

I hear those who remain
to whom I belong
nevertheless you are the one who remains on this date when you end your life and remain for good
whereas I go on advancing towards death and that the unknown distance between your death and mine remains to be crossed
and your death has me living backwards joining you while you remain where I started from
and I walk backwards towards death
and what is left to me of life is caught between two deaths

I hear those who remain
and I hear nothing more

What remains of you
I cannot imagine
cannot imagine your face, your eyes, your mouth without their flesh or your rotting flesh or your eyes – your eyes with their extreme and inexhaustible gaze – their pupils burst by fermentation gases
I know, can see even
but I cannot hear
I cannot hear the words
they sound blank
I cannot understand them
they are written words yet impossible speech

I hear those who remain in what remains and in this ploughing of lines which turn over my words I hear suddenly
lines
like
maggots
or I read remains and the word goes missing
until
only sound remains and I hear renames or ream hay nuts or
how far
language unravels
until
I no longer understand what I’m saying the way it’s hard for me to say “you are no longer”
youaredeadoralivebutyouremainsomethingnolongertobeisnottobetobedeadistobedeadandnolongeraliverightbutiftobedeadistobenothingmorethennolongertobehasnomeaningespeciallynottowantand
for hours on end
and the murmur under the words which crumbles them is also your death

But for you
since lonelier in death than I here with not even as I tears and mourning
with nothing whatsoever
or then where and in what company you?
that rainy spring day on the edge of the Bois de Boulogne with the pigeons the purple clover blossoms do you remember the dieresis on the Bienvenüe in Montparnasse which for us isolated the whole word
welcoming us
and my four-leaved clovers you called rabbit feed
the clovers in their tape envelopes I give them to you just in case remained currency of our soul
like
the small change of a happiness slips through my fingers a happiness which
died
for you
for which nothing remains in death
and not even the knowing and feeling of death
or else but the else is too immoderate for the fabric of a soul worn by hurt
for you since devoid of eyes which offer what my eyes see in the drizzle which is washing the horizon the house above the harbour such as the one we would have lived in
like
a lover’s word or gesture
like
the way we would have gazed together at the periwinkle sky of the south on the grey sea
and would have found them beautiful in their present state
without expecting more
and the cool air which causes shoulder slightly to shiver
in the scent of eucalyptus and iodine
there is no proof
but skin requires none
neither do the clouds in the yellow dawn
of the separate sea
remains only a line at the sky’s curved end
from you to me
a line about to sink 


Extract of Death is never like Translated by Anne Talvaz
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Claude Ber is a French poet, essayist and playwright with a dozen books to her name, the latest of which, Epître Langue Louve, was published in 2015, Il y a des choses que non in 2017. She has also contributed to various art books and anthologies. Her collection La mort n’est jamais comme won the ‘Prix international de poésie francophone Yvan-Goll’ in 2004. She has taught at French universities including Science Po in Paris, and is an active participant in a number of international conferences and festivals. Her books have been translated into several languages.

​Her poetry books are : Il y a des choses que non, Editions Bruno Doucey, Paris, 2017 ; Paysages de cerveau, text Claude Ber, photography Adrienne Arth, Editions Fidel Anthelme, Marseille, 2015 ; Epitre Langue Louve, Editions de l’Amandier, Paris, 2015 ; La Mort n’est jamais comme, International prize of poetry Yvan Goll 2004, Editions de l’Amandier, Paris, 2011 ; Méditations de lieux, photography Adrienne Arth, text C. Ber, J. Gardes, A. Arth, Editions de l’Amandier, Paris, 2010 ; Vues de vaches, text Claude Ber, photography de Cyrille Derouineau, Éditions de l’Amourier, Paris, 2009 ; Le nombre le nom, poésie, illustrations Claire Laporte, Editions Ficelles, Paris, 2009 ; Sinon la Transparence, 1996, Editions de l’Amandier, Paris, 2008 ; Alphabêtes, (children’s literature), Editions Lo Pais d'Enfance, Marseille, 1999 ; Lieu des Epars, Editions Gallimard, Paris, 1979.


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​VerseVille (formerly The Enchanting Verses Literary Review) © 2008-2025    ISSN 0974-3057 Published from India. 

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    • 2011 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XIV November 2011
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    • 2013 Issues >
      • ISSUE-XVIII April 2013
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      • ISSUE XX May 2014
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      • ISSUE XXI February 2015
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      • ISSUE XXIII August 2016
      • Poetry From Ireland ISSUE XXIV December 2016
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      • ISSUE XXV August 2017
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      • ISSUE XXVII July 2018
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      • ISSUE XXIX July 2019
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      • Issue XXX February 2020
      • ISSUE XXXI December 2020
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      • ISSUE XXXII August 2021
    • 2022 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXIII June 2022
      • ISSUE XXXIV December 2022
    • 2023 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXV August 2023
      • ISSUE XXXVI December 2023 Indian Poetry
    • 2024 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVII October 2024 Bengali Poetry
    • 2025 ISSUES >
      • ISSUE XXXVIII January 2025 Balkan Poetry
  • Collaborations
    • Macedonian Collaboration
    • Collaboration with Dutch Foundation for Literature
  • Interviews
  • Prose on Poetry and Poets
    • 2010-2013 >
      • Sylvia Plath by Dr. Nidhi Mehta >
        • Chapter-1(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-2(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-3(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-4(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-5(Sylvia Plath)
        • Chapter-6(Sylvia Plath)
      • Prose Poems of Tagore by Dr. Bina Biswas >
        • Chapter-1(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-2(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-3(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-4(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-5(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-6(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-7(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-8(Rabindranath Tagore)
        • Chapter-9(Rabindranath Tagore)
      • Kazi Nazrul Islam by Dr. Shamenaz Shaikh >
        • Chapter 1(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 2(Nazrul Islam)
        • Chapter 3(Nazrul Islam)
      • Kabir's Poetry by Dr. Anshu Pandey >
        • Chapter 1(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 2(Kabir's Poetry)
        • Chapter 3(Kabir's Poetry)
      • My mind's not right by Dr. Vicky Gilpin >
        • Chapter- 1 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-2 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-3 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
        • Chapter-4 Dr. Vicky Gilpin
      • On Poetry & Poets by Abhay K.
      • Poetry of Kamla Das –A True Voice Of Bourgeoisie Women In India by Dr.Shikha Saxena
      • Identity Issues in the Poetry of Nissim Ezekiel by Dr.Arvind Nawale & Prashant Mothe*
      • Nissim Ezekiel’s Latter-Day Psalms: His Religious and Philosophical Speculations By Dr. Pallavi Srivastava
      • The Moping Owl : the Epitome of Melancholy by Zinia Mitra
      • Gary Soto’s Vision of Chicano Experiences: The Elements of San Joaquin and Human Nature by Paula Hayes
      • Sri Aurobindo: A Poet By Aju Mukhopadhyay
      • Wordsworthian Romanticism in the Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Nature and the Reflective Capabilities of a Poetic Self by Paula Hayes
      • Reflective Journey of T.S. Eliot: From Philosophy to Poetry by Syed Ahmad Raza Abidi
      • North East Indian Poetry: ‘Peace’ in Violence by Ananya .S. Guha
    • 2014-2015 >
      • From The Hidden World of Poetry: Unravelling Celtic mythology in Contemporary Irish Poetry Adam Wyeth
      • Alchemy’s Drama: Conflict, Resolution and Poiesis in the Poetic Work of Art by Michelle Bitting
      • Amir Khushrau: The Musical Soul of India by Dr. Shamenaz
      • PUT YOUR HANDS ON ME: POETRY'S EROTIC ART by Elena Karina Byrne
      • Celtic and Urban Landscapes in Irish Poetry by Linda Ibbotson
      • Trickster at the African Crossroads and the Bridge to the Blues in America by Michelle Bitting
    • 2015-2016 >
      • Orogeny/Erogeny: The “nonsense” of language and the poetics of Ed Dorn T Thilleman
      • Erika Burkart: Fragments, Shards, and Visions by Marc Vincenz
      • English Women Poets and Indian politics
    • 2016-2017 >
      • Children’s Poetry in India- A Case Study of Adil Jussawalla and Ananya Guha by Shruti Sareen
      • Thirteen Thoughts on Poetry in the Digital Age by Mandy kAHN
    • 2017-2018 >
      • From Self-Portrait with Dogwood: A Route of Evanescence by Christopher Merrill
      • Impure Poetry by Tony Barnstone
      • On the Poets: Contributors in Context by Donald Gardner
      • Punching above its Weight: Dutch Poetry in English, a Selection, 2013-2017 by Jane Draycott
  • Print Editions