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Poetry. Translated from the French by Angela Carr. In COIT, minimalist traces of language cling to a series of mapped channels. Every channel is a tenuous archive of choreographed gestures recorded by the poet from the edges of dance stages. Here, spaces hold words and words hold movement. A book marked by inexhaustible passages, this exquisite English language translation of Quebecoise poet Chantal Neveu's fourth book invites the reader to collaborate in the making of both texts and spaces. Here, COIT refers not only to coitus but to the act of moving in unison. Conceptual and intimate, COIT is a consensual experiment that exceeds the form of the book.
"This is that rare book of poetry that makes you want to give it to everyone you know, because it affirms that precise relation, that knowledge, as embodied, contingent on distance, ephemeral--an electrifying site of potentiality. Dear Chantal Neveu: thank you for returning us to our gestures, to the edges of our bodies, of language, our given prosceniums, ducts. Dear Angela Carr: thank you for affirming, via translation, a book that is so uncommonly generous...that affirms (like translation) the world with the world."--Christian Hawkey
About the author
ANGELA CARR is the author of two poetry books,
Ropewalk (nominated for the McAuslan First Book Prize) and
The Rose Concordance. As a translator, she translated
Coit by Chantal Neveu. Originally from Montreal, Carr now lives in New York City, where she teaches Creative Writing.
CHANTAL NEVEU is the author of several books of poetry, including
you;
La vie radieuse (
This Radiant Life, winner of the 2021 Governor General's Literary Award for Translation and the 2021 Nelson Ball Prize);
coït (
Coït); and
Une spectaculaire influence (
A Spectacular Influence). She has created numerous interdisciplinary literary works, in Canada and abroad. Her work has appeared in many magazines and anthologies. She has held residencies at Maison de la poésie de Nantes (France), Passa Porta and Villa Hellebosch (Belgium), and Villa Waldberta (Germany). Neveu lives in Montreal.
