Elegies - by Emmanuel Hocquard (Paperback)

About the Book

"The central works of one of France's most renowned poets, now translated into English for the first time. Emmanuel Hocquard's Elegies lie at the core of his oeuvre, one of the most admired in contemporary French poetry. Written over some twenty-five years, the elegies trace an expressive thread throughout the whole of his work as they wander through a capacious past, and, like rolling thunder, make that past larger and larger. Whose past is it? And to whom does the past, in general, belong? Hocquard seems to suggest that, like air and water, the past is a commons shared by all, for while these works are studded with vivid autobiographical glimpses, they also sweep through wide swaths of the ancient world as well as contemporary markets, streets, and other public places, overhearing conversations and capturing quotidian details. Elsewhere, Hocquard has distinguished between two types of elegiac poet-the classic and the inverse. He goes on to say that the classic ruminates on the past while the inverse remakes it. They both love anecdote, he says, but for the classic, anecdote saves a memory from oblivion, while for the inverse, it is a tiny clue that opens up a new path, a path toward the present. Hocquard is clearly an inverse elegiac poet; his Elegies are full of rich anecdotes, and they all lead us to an ever-expanding present"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

The central works of one of France's most renowned poets, now translated into English for the first time.

Emmanuel Hocquard's Elegies, written over some twenty-five years, lie at the core of his oeuvre, one of the most admired in contemporary French poetry. They sound the depths of the past, finding it ever deeper, and they pose the question: To whom does the past belong? Like air and water, Hocquard suggests, the past is a commons shared by all. His Elegies are full of quotidian detail--the life of the street and the marketplace, overheard conversations, glimpses of private existence--even as they make room for the ancient world from which the form of the elegy descends.

Hocquard has distinguished between two types of elegiac poet--what he calls the classic and the inverse. The classic ruminates on the past; the inverse remakes it. Hocquard is an inverse elegiac poet: Rich with the past, his poems lead us into an ever-expanding present.

Review Quotes

"It is a major event to have Emmanuel Hocquard's masterwork available to a new audience. The implicit subject of this book, like all elegy, is time and its inscrutability--to be located nowhere and everywhere at once. The capacious voice of these poems conjures a layered presence where each perception feels far away in time and yet extraordinarily intimate and direct. Cole Swensen's brilliant translation is a tour de force and allows for all the magic to happen." -- Peter Gizzi

About the Author

Emmanuel Hocquard (1940-2019) was a French poet, editor, and translator who grew up in Tangiers. He is the author of over twenty books, including The Invention of Glass and Theory of Tables, and he has translated into French the work of writers such as Charles Renikoff, Paul Auster, Michael Palmer, and Fernando Pessoa.

Cole Swensen is the author of twenty books of poetry; a collection of hybrid poetic essays, Art in Time; and a volume of critical essays, Noise That Stays Noise. A former Guggenheim Fellow and a recipient of the Iowa Poetry Prize and the San Francisco State Poetry Center Book Award, she also translates poetry and art criticism from the French and has won the PEN USA Award in Translation, the 2024 ALTA National Translation Award, and the 2025 Stephen Mitchell Prize. She divides her time between France and the United States.