WHITE DECIMAL

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WHITE DECIMAL, BY JEAN DAIVE, TRANSLATED BY NORMA COLE

In White Decimal, Jean Daive asks emptiness to speak. He draws from minimalism, from a “white decimal / at the edge of space,” from the way an “avalanche remakes absence,” and he interrogates the image of white superimposed on white. With each layering, Daive limits and focuses his palette with reverent restraint. His verse breathes through the sparseness and the rhythm of his lines. It stretches out to fill and embody the white space that surrounds his poems. This is a collection where each image, each phrase, each syllable is carefully curated and arranged in an attempt to discover the thing that “haunt[s] what absence no longer holds.”

And it is as a master of curation where Norma Cole’s skill as a translator shines through. It’s clear, in this bilingual edition of the book, that Cole has given each word of Daive’s original its due; each rings out in English as measured and unwavering. Like trying to pinpoint a “white insect” in “boundless snow,” White Decimal is a collection most interested in what’s revealed from searching.

Omnidawn.