ABSTRACT

The Irish poet John Montague has translated Carnac, arguably the most immediately engaging collection in Eugene Guillevic's vast poetic production. As Carnac proceeds, Guillevic draws an increasingly complex double portrait. Ostensibly about the sea's "sea-ness", the book implicitly depicts an ever-questioning self seeking to situate itself in the cosmos. And as the poet peers inward, notably toward the memory of a past love, he perceives the ultimate dissolution of that human self, an insight liberating him enough from specific emotional turmoil and painful recollections to stand up—like a menhir—to the sea. And endeavor to define its elusive, even alienating, essence. For Guillevic, this little heap of white salt has poignant metaphorical resonance. In his view, no poet can possess the sea itself—only the "mound of white salt": the poem. A poem cannot therefore attain or re-create reality; it only receives a long-purified deposit of desire, longing, sadness, commemoration or cogitation.