Franck André Jamme and Norma Cole - Review by philipGtaylor

The first thing one noticed at Tuesday's reading hosted by DIA was the venue— stark, bare white walls, sporadically spotlit, with the main light shining down on the reading podium from above, suggesting the atmosphere of an art gallery more than a poetry reading. As the reading commenced with Franck André Jamme reading his poetry, the harsh single light from above cast a deep shadow on the canvas-like space behind him, cutting the clear image of a stooped man with head bent beneath the wearying weight of experience. 

Before he began, Jamme introduced his work with a note of "thanks to the absent" to the silence in the room as his words settled over the crowd like fog over a graveyard lawn. He began to read in a voice twice as strong as the level of his brief speech, delivering his work with obvious awareness to the music and gentle wind of his native French. Although I understood only a few words of Jamme's near 20 minute reading, I was moved by the musicality of his language and delivery; I was lost in the ebb and flow of his vocalizations. As he read from line to line, he would look out into the crowd with a piercing gentleness and a half-smile full of weary kindness. He swayed back and forth against the matt-grey podium, following the rhythm of his words. "Here," I thought to myself, "is a poet dancing with the music of poetics." The image conjured in my mind was of a falling leaf and its spin on the zigzagging currents of air as it drifts toward the earth with peaceful resignation. 

Without prefacing her work, Norma Cole began to recite her translation of Jamme's poetry. Her speech was soft, halting, the byproduct of a devastating stroke years before, and yet despite the obvious labor required for her to perform the reading, her delivery captured the fragile serenity of the poem. "Magic, to go up the stairs to the empty grotto in the sky, or nearly." 

The conversational language used in her translation provided a grounding contrast to the high metaphysical content of the poem, with strikingly haunting lines such as "and deep down, I'm thirstier than I ever thought."

There were some obvious differences inherent in the two languages used to deliver the same content, as the English "so red, so red" line sounded more full of horror than its French equivalent. 

All in all, the reading was stark and lovely as a calm pond at midnight.