Poems by Irène Gayraud
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On certain nights since she moved into her new apartment, once she lay down in the darkness she could make out the sound of flowing water, as if a creek had suddenly appeared before her door. Sometimes she would get up to make certain no trickle of water fell from the faucets or the shower head, but the sound would fade away as soon as she reached her feet, only to take up again the moment she was back in bed. As slumber carried her away ever so gradually, she listened to the flow of the water within her; it sprang forth in her throat, cascading down the length of her trachea, then plunged further down, much further down, muffled slaps resonating against the walls of an undersea cavern.
Translated by Chris Clarke. She emerged from narrow streets and cut across fields. Suddenly, she found herself in front of the great church in ruins. Its high walls time worn into notches, had lost none of their their splendour. She entered the nave taken over by grass. The rain thrummed loudly upon a glass roof installed to protect the remains of the statues stored in the church. A fine haze drizzled, filtering and swirling in the air. She sat on the ground and realized that her hands were still covered in white soap. She reached out her arms in a gesture at once full and sure, and yet lightly restrained, as in an attempt, and said, Let’s go. A column of rain fell down on hands as though from an invisible tap, and she washed them unhurriedly in the water mingled with clarity. And when all the traces of soap had disappeared, she said, Enough, and at that moment the column of rain ceased to fall. Perhaps her words and gestures were a celebration or a rite, for what, no one knew, but they had been carried out with the luminous precision of a June dawn. Translated by Lily Robert-Foley. Original French poems from : Voltes, Al Manar, 2016 |
 Gayraud Copyright Raphaël Lucas
Irène Gayraud writes poetry, poetical-extremely-short-fictions, and currently a novel. She has published three books : à distance de souffle, l’air (éditions du Petit Pois, 2014), Voltes (Al Manar, 2016) and Point d'eau (éditions du Petit Véhicule, 2017). She translates from Italian, Spanish and German into French : she collaborated with Christophe Mileschi to translate the Dino Campana’s poetical work (Dino Campana, Chants Orphiques et autres poèmes, Paris, Points, coll. “Poésie”).
Her poems have been translated into reviews and anthologies in Slovakia, Germany, Taïwan, Canada and Mexico. She holds a doctorate in comparative literature at Sorbonne Université where she teaches. |
