Love Is Colder Than the Lake

By Liliane Giraudon and Alexander Laban Hinton

*Author is an influential editor and reviewer for French literary publications such as Banana Split, Action Poétique, and If, and has performed and collaborated widely with other eminent thinkers and writers, including Nanni Balastrini, Henri Delui and Jean-Jacques Viton. This is the first full-length translation of her poetry into English. 

 *Exemplary of experimental French feminist poetry with an autobiographical bent and virtuosic energy and style à la Susan Howe or Hanna Hoch. Written out of a deep connection to Marseille, France, where author was born, lives, works, and participates in the diverse cosmopolitanism of the city alongside a close community of artists and writers there 

*Translator (Turner) holds an MFA in poetry from New York University and PhD in English from the University of Virginia. She is currently an Assistant Professor in English and Creative Writing at Case Western Reserve University and her essays and poems have been published in outlets such as The Kenyon Review, New York Review of Books and The Atlantic. She has received numerous fellowship, grants and awards, including the Woodberry Poetry Room Creative Grant from Harvard University and the French Voices Translation Award. 

 *Translator (Riggs) holds a PhD in English from the University of Michigan and has taught classes and workshops at the Pratt Institute Creative Writing MFA, New York University in France, Columbia University and more. She is a widely published poet, and translator, with writing in The New York Times, The Nation, Conjunctions, New American Writing and has produced films that have screened at venues including the Anthology Film Archives and the Tate Modern.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Nightboat Books
• Release date: Feb 14, 2024
• ISBN: 9781643622262

Book preview

I

LOVE IS COLDER THAN THE LAKE

… there is no psychological state behind it,

because when the poem is done, the poet is dead.

— KEITH WALDROP

deliver the coincidences

the angles the sounds the stars

dead but still visible

like us

are you hungry

are you cold

turtledovecome back

come back sing at my window

what is fast

An atmospheric painThe life I liveThe book I don’t write

Alone between the tower and the hangmanHe did say atmosphericAll

that is family historyMineral lineageSomething even more

fundamental and repugnantBlock rose lilacCyclamen close to grape

Making a reliefIn the surfaces of greenery

of the enlarged carnivore

orchid or café au lait same difference

the shape of the water

so that’s why Macbeth assassinates sleep

for example

to get stepped all over

to have had enough

she says she mistook the coat for

the skirt no

a man doesn’t wear one

nothing ever replaces nothing

I could go bicycling

nothing doesn’t exist

Love-Hate that can be doneSome doThe book is our

bookEach minute of each morningA plumbing treatySometimes

a blackbird singsPoor sweet thingsSire it’s a very beautiful perfume

Like everything that flowers togetherAmong clusters of dried blood

White of the white nightThe rose ridgeSilence lapping

stuff his ass with paper

you can strike the matches with your thumb

next time don’t tire yourself

send a monkey

deadly fragmentation or perennial variety

Greece seems to melt

easier even than butter

the blows of the Persian Empire

the darkness is great

The system’s modalities belong to a voyage’sLost also

even if bunchesNaked girls in KodacolorAntibiotics and

chocolateWe cry we laughYou remember then you forgetPastel reflection

on all the actsTake your timeDrink some SchnappsScrew

your mothersChat up your cousins and your brothers’ cousinsEat some

mussels eat blood sausageIt’s still summer hours

alas AHEAD OF TIME

it’s printed above

you will return

you promise

like the warThe famine

somebody knocked something over

someone picks it up

the invention of ruins was in fashion that year

nothing is no longer anybody

We were dancingYou like to danceYou dance well

Who is itWhy do you look at himLet’s take this outside where I can take

care of him myselfI had warned youI’ll take down the next one who touches you

Dirty whoreDirty little whore

today is tomorrow

to wreck the pronominal form

I would like to work at it

like eating petits-fours

peel an orange or squeeze a lemon

in angerNo

we are not angry

the mess on my table

whether I eat or I write

in perfect harmony with my thought

raw beans to go with the evening pastis

+ Emma Goldman in fine form

nothing to do with me

I row

in search of holes

The more she remembers the less she feels presentIt’s a rare experience

A simple child’sBastard a lily without a labelOf the torn

sheetSome drops on the skinA single little bowlI love who

loves me otherwise notSire don’t go thinking that I’m lying to youThe

kingdom is inside the bottleFar from Orpheus sodomite widower