Synopses & Reviews
This first paperback edition of Edmond Jabes' poetry collects both early and late poems. The influential French/Egyptian/Jewish writer is best known for his powerful poetic prose (The Book of Questions, The Book of Dialogue). Yet Jabes' poetry, writes Paul Auster in his introduction, was his proving ground. One finds [there] the same economy of reference, the same passionate lyricism, the same tendency towards aphorism and the same obsessive preoccupation with the act of writing itself. Even the theme of exile . . . is already present. Robert Duncan's great essay on Jabes, The Delirium of Meaning, serves as afterword.