Poetry

2014 • 88 pp.
ISBN: 978-1-934200-80-3
La Presse

PURCHASE:
Small Press Distribution
Bookshop.org

Meticulous, precise, exact, on the one hand, and fluid, errant, and associational on the other, Macher's long poem performs an archeology of sensation with particular attention to the body and its mastery of the modes of perception that fall between the five standard senses. Acutely aware of her environment and its continual changes, Macher guides the reader's senses through the particulars of a "here and now" that is always negotiating with various other times, places, and events. The resulting document is a warm, wry record of life lived with attention. As well as a love story.

The L Notebook

Sabine Macher

Translated from the French by Eleni Sikelianos

SABINE MACHER

Born and raised in West Germany, Sabine Macher has lived in France since 1976. After earning her master’s degree in German literature, she became a professional dancer, and has devoted much of her professional life to performing with a number of choreographers and groups over the past 30 years, most recently Laurent Pichaud and Mickaël Phélippeau. The author of eleven books of poetry, Macher is also a photographer, and many of her books include images. She also works extensively in soundscapes and sound installations; her work has been presented at the Palais de Tokyo and elsewhere. Her latest books are Portraits inconnus (Melville, Leo Scheer, 2004) and Deux coussins pour Norbert (Le bleu du ciel, 2009). She lives in Paris.

REVIEWS

“Sabine Macher’s the L notebook, translated by Eleni Sikelianos and published in La Presse’s extraordinary series of translated contemporary French writing, immediately lends itself to summer’s mood of languid seduction. Chronicling a love affair between the speaker and a man named only by the letter “v,” the book moves from attraction and expectation through rendezvous and climax to the affair’s likely dissolution. Narrating the romance is a speaker whose intimacy and details fascinate with sensory precision, holding us so very pleasurably in physical and emotional space.” —Karla Kelsey, The Constant Critic

EXCERPT

the peony has made some leaves to shade the whole balcony

the little elephant is standing up in front of my notebook

the washing machine faucet drips in the bathroom

i’m smoking under the clouds the ink leaks from my pen

the pillow is rolled up in the bed i unroll

music and mexican shouting arriyou keep me up

eyes closed i call the police

that’s the first time i’ve ever written i call the police

there is also a storm

gorgeous rumbling thunder and lightning

that’s what woke me

i didn’t call anyone

i got up to mop up the water

this morning i’m making movements while moving

the morning dance

i get the house ready for the day

outside the weather is a tepid soup

made for kissing

the peony keeps its leaves horizontal far from the stalk thanks to

its slender red stem

sit doesn’t suffer from the rain