The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

PASCALLE MONNIER

Beginning of Summer

Dawn will dissolve
in the blue where the sun
turns. You listen
to hints of space taking shape,
your eyes rove over the visible
arc and shock of the rosy light
sifted by wind. This is
June: a grass harp.
—philip stratford

Wakening

The dream of the river
is scarcely dispersed.
I emerge from its shadowless
light like a swimmer
from the water’s embrace.
I lean out the window
and the strangeness
of the morning surprises me.
Into the street noiselessly spills
the dawn, a shoreless sea.
—philip stratford

Pascalle Monnier 1958–

bordeaux, france

M

onnier has published articles and poems in the reviews Banana

Split, Action poétique, Les Lettres françaises, and La Métaphore. She

currently lives in Paris. During 1992 and 1993, she was a writer-in-

residence at the Villa Medici in Rome. She collaborated on a new translation of the

Bible for Éditions Bayard. Monnier also works frequently with visual artists. John