Ardour

something like wait for me
in the braille of scars
tonight can i suggest a little punctuation
circle half-moon vertical line of astonishment
a pause that transforms
light and breath 
into language and threshold of fire

Even as vowels tremble in danger and worldly destruction repeats itself on the horizon, Ardour reminds us that the silence pulsing within us is also a language of connection. In these poems, intimacy with the other is another astonishment—a pleasant gasp, a "pause that transforms light and breath into language and threshold of fire." Since her first book appeared fifty years ago, Nicole Brossard has left us breathless, expanding our notion of poetry and its possibilities.

'[Nicole Brossard] is a wholly singular writer, part of a larger movement of Quebec Women's writing, part of feminist writing, avant-garde writing, part of lesbian writing, but wholly, unequivocally, herself.' – Sina Queyras