This anthology-of poetry, interviews, and ideas-is geared toward an American audience (Gavronsky is a professor at Barnard College) and traces the transformation of French poetry over the last few decades as witnessed and shaped by 12 contemporary French poets. The introduction sheds light on that most complex and revolutionary French poetic ethos of the late '60s, ecriture-poetry in which ``language and textuality become subject-matter''-as it relates to past aesthetic ideologies such as Surrealism and Structuralism, and discusses how French poets in the decades since have rejected ecriture's dogmatic anti-lyric stance while upholding its emphasis on play of language, resulting in a ``neolyricism'' that values emotion as much as form. In the interviews, conducted in the late '80s with writers ranging from Michel Deguy to American-born Leslie Kaplan, these issues are rigorously discussed. After each interview a reader finds well-chosen samples of the poet's work, the entire selection first in English, with the French following. Examining the facets of contemporary French poetry by going straight to the source-the poets themselves-Gavronsky has organized a book as important, fascinating and far-reaching as his subject matter. (Dec.)
