The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

SILVIA BARON SUPERVIELLE

He collects himself. Tenderness
of the loom
of the bed
the sun on milk.

The long voyage crowded with monsters
now
is
a finger tracing exile’s endless shore around the bowl’s rim

the face reflected
in confines of liquid

and enough blue sky to tint the milk around it.
—martin sorrell

Silvia Baron Supervielle 1934–

buenos aires, argentina

B

aron Supervielle’s first poems were written in Spanish, her native

tongue. In 1961 she moved from Argentina to Paris. There she worked

at the bookstore La Hune, at Éditions Gallimard, and at the Centre

culturel argentin. She also undertook translation work for UNESCO. During

this time she was not writing her own poetry; after a long silence, she began

writing in French and translating French and Spanish. Baron Supervielle was the

first to translate Marguerite Yourcenar into Spanish. Invited by the French em-

bassy to participate in conferences in Buenos Aires, she returned to Argentina in

1997. Principal works: La Distance de sable, 1983; Lectures de vent, 1988; L’Or de

l’incertitude, 1990; L’Eau étrangère, 1993; Le Livre du retour, 1993; La Frontière,

1995; Après le pas, 1997; La Ligne et l’ombre, 1999.