Paris, Friday 26 January

Did I say the weather had warmed up and turned rainy. Rain shines on the zinc roofs across the street this morning. When I was a child, and especially a teen, I didn’t like Vancouver’s wetness because it made my hair frizz, really frizz, and nothing kept it straight when I went out. Then I taught school in Ghana for a couple years and damp heat wasn’t great either. Then I made peace with my curly hair… . What I love is the sound of rain coming down; in fact, this morning I am sitting with the window open so there’s no glass between the rain’s sssh sssh and me.

And now to a translation and more rewriting - tweaking - of ‘the book’ poems.

Paris, Thursday 18 January

Snow overnight. It must be cold outside, but the sun is casting angular shadows across the zinc roof of the church opposite.

Soon I must send the ‘final’ manuscript of Apples Thieves off to the publisher, Carcanet. Then the in-press details, copy editing, jacket design (a tough one and not entirely my decision), publication on 29 August (so precise already!). MostIy I am tweaking poems, but one, about a sewing machine, I made big changes to this week, more of a problem, since now I am too close to the poem to see what needs to be improved. Need to step back, step away but hard when the deadline looms!

Working on the bed, looking out at the snow. The kite (in lieu of curtains) is chilly.

Paris, Monday 15 January

The zinc roofs of the buildings and church are damp this morning: it rained overnight, which means the temperatures, below freezing, must have gone up a notch or two. Pigeons are splashing in the gutters.

I’m still working - fussing? - with the Jaccottet translation I began last week, a recently-discovered poem in his 1946-67 Poésies (Gallimard). It is a short, apparently simple poem about sitting in room in the morning: ‘Silence enters like a servant come to tidy up.’ The via negativa… .

And so here I am sitting in my own quiet room, waiting…

Paris, 12 January 2024

Over jetlag, oof! This morning I’m working on a translation of Philippe Jaccott’s poem, ‘L’ignorant,’ a title I have provisionally translated as ‘The Know Nothing.’ I did a quick draft yesterday, working as I often do, on/in bed, looking out the window at the pigeons living on the side wall of the church across the street (What happened to the crows? I’m wondering). Today I have moved back to the couch in the study/guest room, where I have at last finished putting my poetry books back on the shelves that were painted this past autumn, my desk opposite, the church obliquely now to my right, filled bookshelves to my left. Bliss.

It’s a wonderful poem and I’ve just found a commentary on it on Jean-Michel Maulpoix’s website, which I must explore further. Now back to the translation, then some tweaking of my own manuscript, Apple Thieves, which I must let go of, soon.

Me, the Know Nothing.

Paris, 5 January 2024

So here we are in Paris. All night I tried to sleep with airplane roar still in my ears and belly. Right now I re-making a New Year 2024 resolution to never reread a blog post after it’s been posted, no matter how much I am tempted to delay putting new words on the page by reading old posts. Instead I read some new poems by D.A Powell on the Poetry Foundation website and was cheered. It’s hard to believe one can change what’s out the window so drastically by sitting on a plane for 10 hours. It was still pitch black at 7 am; I wondered if the clocks were wrong, but I looked at a watch, ipad and got up to check the clock on the stove and yes, it was not yet 8 o’clock: no street noise, no lights on in other apartments. I made myself a hot water bottle and went back to my airplane noise.

December 28, Palo Alto

Just back from a week in Friday Harbour, St Juan Island, in the state of Washington. Never easy making plane-small island-hopper-plane / ferry. Our plane to Seattle was several hours late taking off, so the 4-hour wait between arrival in Seattle got whittled down to nothing: we missed the island-hopper plane by about half an hour. Second option was a car to the ferry in Anacortes, scheduled for 8 pm, which actually left with us aboard around 9 pm. But we made it - and smoothly-connected flights back to St José yesterday.

Now for Paris on Tuesday! Looking forward. Meanwhile I’m making last-minute corrections to my poetry manuscript, due soon at the publisher, Carcanet, for August publication. I need to forget the poems for a while, then try and see them with fresh (ie, more objective) eyes. My two poetry groups, Berkeley and Stanza France are great for that, too, nothing like showing them to other poets to make you sit up and see them anew. Also good, is reading other peoples’ poems: at the moment David Ferry, another poet-translator, a recent discovery of mine.

December 18, California

I have been neglecting my blog, partly because I feel so repetitive, but I have some good news to share: my lovely British publisher, https://www.carcanet.co.uk/, will bring out my fifth collection of poetry in August 2024. Carcanet was also the publisher of my 2018 collection, The Hotel Eden, and I am delighted they want the new book, which will be called Apple Thieves, after a poem by the same name published in The New Yorker magazine in April 2019.

So the holidays are almost upon us. We head for St Juan Island, Washington (state) for a few days, return to Palo Alto and head off to Paris a few days later. On January 9 I’ll be introducing my friend and fellow writer, Shelley Day, who is launching her book, Paris Pages. That’s at 7 pm at The Red Wheelbarrow bookshop opposite the Luxembourg Garden in the 6th arrondissement. Hope to see you there!

The Vaucluse, 25 May, 2023

I love a wet morning, even on the day I planned to wash and sun-dry the sheets. And it was really pouring when I work up this morning, not ‘just spitting,’ as our nextdoor neighbour, who likes rain, but who often seems to feel it’s the wrong day. This month rain is unwelcome because of the cherry crop. I imagine most farmers have the same feelings about weather, whatever it is. Moreover the moon was new ten days ago, on which day it also rained, and, says our neighbour, whatever weather we have on the day of the new moon, will dominate the next 28 days.

My publisher at Seagull Books has just sent me a remarkable review of the English translation (mine) of Hélène Cixous’s Well-kept Ruins (Seagull Books, 2022). I am very pleased to record Xiao Yue Shan’s comment about the translation:

‘Beverley Bie Brahic, Cixous’ longtime English translator, deftly controls the topology of these words by thinking the author into this other language, transposing this hailstorm of intuitions and suspensions into a confident voice that acknowledges meanings. Cixous’ penchant for wordplay and linguistic curios has made it famously difficult to translate her, yet the exuberant dynamism and musicality of this iteration is sensitive to humor, to outburst, to the sheer joy that the stylist commands. There is no doubt in these pages, no stuttering hesitation; Brahic’s long career as a poet heightens her ability to convey the unfurling, sentence by sentence, that is so enchanting about Cixous’ transformative craft.’

Most of all this review shows extraordinary understanding of Cixous’s writing. Here is a link to the whole of the reviewer’s essay on the Cleveland Review of Books website:

https://www.clereviewofbooks.com/writing/helene-cixous-well-kept-ruins

If you are as impressed as I am by Xiao Yue Shan’s writing, you may also wish to read a story of hers on Granta: https://granta.com/to-that-silence-i-told-everything/.