part 6. 1981–2002: young poetry at the end of the millennium
Openness in the realm of publication is reflected in the proliferation of
little magazines in the last decades, some short-lived, some lasting. Con-
sider Michel Deguy’s Po&sie, which was founded in 1977 and continues
strong today, its editorial board comprising such highly respected poets as
Claire Malroux and Jacques Roubaud and such overseas correspondents as
Pierre Joris, Christopher Middleton, and Nathaniel Tarn. And consider
L’Action poétique, edited by Henri Deluy and founded by André Parinaud
and Jacques Darras, with the poet Marie Étienne on its editorial board. A
recent issue of the journal Autrement, entitled Zigzag poésie: Formes et
mouvements: L’E√ervescence, is filled with challenging pieces about perfor-
mance poetry and debates concerning a few recent writings (‘‘écritures’’)
and poetry anthologies; several poems from that issue were chosen for this
volume.∞
Little poetry magazines continue to flourish in France, often subsidized
by the government’s literary agency. They bear such titles as Doc(k)s,
Double-Change, Java, Lungfull!, Nioques, and If—pronounced ‘‘eef,’’ refer-
ring, first, to the conditional if, second, to Le Château d’If, an infamous
island prison where inmates inscribed their names on stone walls, and,
third, to the yew from which bows for string instruments are created.
Although these magazines are, in large part, defined by their di√erences,
they belong to an international literary community that includes editors
and writers associated with American publications such as Chain, The
Germ, Issue, Mirage, and Talisman. The journal Fence has deliberately
established itself on both sides of the Atlantic, with an equal number of
editors on each shore; such a bold venture gives new luster to poetry. On
the North American side of the Atlantic, we think of the endlessly experi-
mental and venerable publishing house Burning Deck and its Série d’Écri-
ture(s), edited by Rosmarie and Keith Waldrop, renowned among publish-
ers and translators of poetry for their enduring optimism and hospitality—
especially to emerging and lesser-known poets.
The rapid development of digitizing practices—which acted as a sort
of leveler, allowing these smaller journals to succeed—raises serious ques-
tions about individual property: Who owns a poem, its translation, its
presentation? But the open, intercontinental dialogue that characterized
the last two decades of the twentieth century was ultimately able to tran-
scend anxieties about globalization and technology. These changes do not
obscure the art but indeed permit a greater participation in the literary
process. Editors, poets, readers, and translators have all tried here to
maintain a common goal: a poetics of possibility.