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The Form of a City Changes Faster, Alas, Than the Human HeartAuthor: Jacques Roubaud Translator: Rosmarie Waldrop French Literature Series July 2006 280 pages, 5 x 8.5 Paperback, 1-56478-383-9 Retail Paperback Price: Our Paperback Price: $11.16 
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Book Description
Composed of 150 poems, with a title taken from Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal, and partly a response to the poetry of Raymond Queneau, this collection explores Jacques Roubaud's many poetic modes. He skips from the strict form of the sonnet to the freedom of prose poetry without abandoning the melancholy playfulness that has defined his lengthy writing career.
A selection of Roubaud's best recent work, The Form of a City describes not only Paris, but also its people, its writers (and those of the Oulipo in particular), its monumental past, and its unsteady response to change.
About the Author
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Jacques Roubaud, born in 1932, has been a professor of mathematics at the University of Paris X Nanterre and is one of the most accomplished members of the Oulipo, the workshop for experimental literature founded by Raymond Queneau and François Le Lionnais. He is the author of numerous books of prose, theatre, and poetry. Most notably, Dalkey Archive Press published two of his Hortense novels—Hortense Is Abducted and Hortense in Exile—his poetry collections Some Thing Black and Plurality of Worlds of Lewis, and his novels The Loop and The Princess Hoppy, or The Tale of Labrador. |
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About the Translator
| Rosmarie Waldrop has translated works by Jacques Roubad, Edmond Jabès, and Paul Celan. |
Praise
"What matters in the end is that uniqueness stands out. It is the case with Jacques Roubaud that, despite many misunderstandings due to his complexity and to his peculiar situation in the field, he is increasingly considered one of the major contemporary poets."—Le théatre de la Colline"(Roubaud) auctions poems, he describes the streets and alleys he walks through in a lively style, and wanders in the dead-ends of memory."—L'Express
More Information
Also by Jacques Roubaud:Hortense in Exile
Hortense is Abducted
Princess Hoppy or, The Tale of Labrador
Some Thing Black
The Great Fire of London: A Story With Interpolations and Bifurcations
The Loop
The Plurality of Worlds of Lewis