In such cases, two or three meanings are valid and function simultaneously. A given line comprising “ feuille” will be interpreted differently if the reader construes the word as “leaf,” “(manuscript) page,” or “piece of paper.” “ Éclat” can be an equivalent of “sparkle,” “burst,” “explosion,” even “shell fragment” or “shrapnel.” When Dupin evokes an “ avalanche de soie” in Of Flies and Monkeys, the “ soie” will be read as “silk” and perhaps heard as “self.” In Mothers, “ vis sans fin” refers to a technical object (a “worm screw mechanism”) but also, phonetically, to “endless vice.” Dupin uses the French “ vers” as both “worms” and “verse,” and he has encouraged me to render the word as “verse-worms.” Words such as “ feuille,” “ éclat,” “ soif,” “ bord,” “ (se) jeter,” or “ souffle” create meanings that are at once rich, even sometimes supersaturated, and not entirely determinate in that it is presented in a process of becoming, of blossoming. His poems ironically transform well-worn expressions and rely on key polysemous terms. These characteristics are especially true of his verse. Its special music derives from abrupt internal rhymes and jagged rhythms. They suggest potential narratives that are left untold, willingly verge on what he calls “illegibility,” and appear “cubist” in their juxtaposition of fragments and rejection of natural or logical transitions.ĭupin’s verse is especially succinct, even skeletal. Often conjuring up a primitive or, more precisely, nascent state of being in which sensations, sentiments, perceptions, thoughts, and acts are depicted as emerging before language categorizes and conceptualizes them, Dupin’s stark poems and prose poems foster paradoxes.
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