The Yale Anthology of Twentieth-Century French Poetry

JACQUES ROUBAUD

you see —
that seeing —
as thus he says
of whom — and of whom the eye —
so long as no other —
will thus be unable —
when every twelve o’clock?
who thought —

less more more more
in a moment —
as much in me as he —
as —
—jennifer moxley

Jacques Roubaud 1932–

caluire-et-cuire, france

A

mathematician, poet, novelist, translator, and essayist, Roubaud ter-

minated his studies in literature at the age of twenty-two to devote

himself to mathematics. Early in the 1960s, while working on both a

book of poetry and a thesis in set theory, he found that logic and mathematical

strategies informed his poetic creation. In 1966, at Raymond Queneau’s invita-

tion, he joined the literary group OULIPO (Ouvroir de Littérature Potentielle),

which experiments extensively with poetic styles and modes. His translation

work includes modern American and Japanese poetry, and his essays champion

poetry and recount the history of its forms. Principal works: Trente et un au cube,

1973; Autobiographie chapitre X, 1977; Une anthologie de poésie américaine: Vingt

poètes américains (with Michel Deguy), 1980; Dors, 1981; Quelque chose noir, 1986;

La Vieillesse d’Alexandre, 1986; Le Grand incendie de Paris, 1989; Anthologie du

sonnet français: Soleil du soleil, 1990; La Forme d’une ville change plus vite hélas

que le coeur des humains, 1999.