The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

MICHELLE GRANGAUD

each line o√ers a di√erent anagram of such thirty-two-letter titles as ‘‘Isi-

dore Ducasse comte de Lautréamont.’’ Raising the stakes even higher, she

arranges these anagrams so as to create one of the most di≈cult and

complicated of all the fixed-form poems: the sestina. This form is com-

posed of six stanzas, each of six lines, followed by an envoi of three lines.

Although rhyme is usually not used in a sestina, the end words recur in a

constantly shifting but fixed pattern. If we assign each end word a number

from 1 to 6, the following pattern is created:

Stanza 1 123456 Stanza 2 615243

Stanza 3 364125 Stanza 4 532614

Stanza 5 451362 Stanza 6 246531

Envoi 246

The envoi also contains the other end words in this pattern, 135. Be-

cause each line is an anagram, translating word for word would obviously

have little sense. We therefore decided that the only way to transfer

Granguad’s anagrammatical poems into English would be to write a ses-

tina in homage to her, taking as our thirty-two-letter starting point one of

her own titles. In her poem, Grangaud was able to use as end words the

four cardinal points: English does not allow that, so we have chosen in-

stead the words inside, outside, and under, plus three elements of the

natural (and poetic) world as our other end words: star, cloud, and moon.

We have followed her lead in removing all punctuation.

—paul lloyd and rosemary lloyd

Michelle Granguad Creating Anagrams

clang lace rug anhingas dream ragtime
thundering mice-clan lams a garage rag
a gaggle man charms granite lunar dice
grail claim hung near grand acme stage
an angel must chair arming ragged lace
rage curls again changing metal dream

turn a manacle arches a giggling dream
cage land manager rushing arc lag time
gain drachma stage merging lunar lace
a mugging canal is cleaner than glad rag
alarm lunging arch earned magic stage
nag urge a calm manner—lights raga dice

as Marg ran a light lugger can name dice
unlace gal stagger in a charming dream
niggling a caldera charm me an ur-stage
sear a chum clang a grin dangle ragtime