Drawing from five contemporary French poets-Jacques Roubaud, Emmanuel Hocquard, Danielle Collobert, Anne Portugal, and Jacques Jouet-Ann Smock juxtaposes them and provides a milieu suitable for philosophical reflection on identity, on not-being and being, on communication, and on secrets. Smock also includes thinkers such as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Giorgio Agamben, who contribute to the conversation, as do Jean-Luc Nancy and Maurice Blanchot. Though the poems considered here are often thought difficult, Smock maintains a light touch throughout. She writes in an accessible, even pleasurable style while contributing to the scholarly study of literature at the border shared by poetry and philosophy

Ann Smock is Professor Emerita of French at the University California, Berkeley. She is the author of What Is There to Say? and Double Dealing.

Acknowledgments

Introduction: Varieties of Light

1. "Thy blackness is a spark"

2. "Birth was the death of him"

3. Palindromes

4. Beware of Enigmas

5. Is This a Dream?

6. Interlude: All and Nothing

7. Fin' Amors

8. Diaphanous

9. Entre Deux

Notes
Bibliography
Index