Stone Lyre: Poems of Rene Char

"Rene Char is the conscience of modern French poetry and also its calm of mind. Nancy Naomi Carlson, in these splendid translations, casts new light upon the sublime consequence of Char's poetic character, and in Stone lyre the case for sublimity is purely made." ---Donald Revell, poet and translator of Rimbaud and Apollinaire

"Early Surrealist, resistance fighter, anti-nuclear activist, and exquisite poet, Rene Char is at the heart of 20th century French poetry. In this insightful selection from across his long career, Carlson gives English-language readers a real sense of Char's depth and breadth. And her masterful translations catch the barely contained drama that gives Char's work such tension and presence, while her excellent ear picks up not only the sound relationships that weave through the originals, but also their delicate, seductive rhythms. A beautiful accomplishment."---Cole Swensen, poet, translator, and founding editor of La Presse

Rene Char (1907-1988) is among the most crucial of twentieth-century writers, for his native France and the world. Char outgrew an early association with the Surrealists and was influenced by close friendships with the artists Braque, Giacometti, and Picasso. During World War Two, he was a leader in the underground French Resistance, and later he was an ardent opponent of nuclear technology. His poetry confronts the moral, political, and artistic challenges of modernity with a prophetic eloquence comparable to the poet-philosophers of ancient Greece
Nancy Naomi Carlson's translations of Char's poetry have appeared in fine journals across the U.S., and her book of poems Complications of the Heart won the 2002 Robert Phillips Prize from Texas Review Press. She teaches at the Writer's Center in Bethesda, Maryland.