[It was Jessica Grim the American poet...]
It was Jessica Grim the American poet
who first advised me to read Violette Leduc.
Lurid conditions are facts. This is no different
from the daily protests and cashbars.
I now unknowingly speed towards
which of all acts, words, conditions —
I am troubled that I do not know.
When I feel depressed in broad daylight
depressed by the disappearance of names, the pollen
smearing the windowsill, I picture
the bending pages of La Bâtarde
and I think of wind. The outspread world is
comparable to a large theatre
or to rending paper, and the noise it makes when it flaps
is riotous. Clothes swish through the air, rubbing
my ears. Promptly I am quenched. I’m talking
about a cheap paperback which fans and
slips to the floor with a shush. Skirt stretched
taut between new knees, head turned back, I
hold down a branch,
Copyright Credit: Lisa Robertson, "[It was Jessica Grim the American poet...]" from the weather. Copyright © 2001 by Lisa Robertson. Reprinted by permission of New Star Books.
Source: the weather (New Star Books, 2001)