No Matter No Fact: Poems

The poems of this 68-year-old French poet and literary editor of Le Monde are simple, plangent statements freighted with the pathos of our bloody and strife-torn 20th century and graced by a hint of surrealismFrance's artistic answer to the political absurdity of the entre-deux-guerres era stripped down by Bosquet to a postmodern skeleton of its former self. Beckett's remarkable version of ""Knife'' limns the relationship between man and his weaponry. Roditi's translation of the poet's chronicle of his stay ``In Beaujon Hospital, Paris'' suggests the fragility of species survival itself as Bosquet meditates on his own mortality. Levertov's renderings of ``A New World,'' ``God's Greatness'' and ``Soon'' show a degree of hope not always evident in this poet of lucid despair. Since Bosquet holds translatability as a high virtue, and his collaborators are all outstanding in their own right, this is nothing less than a perfect book of pure poetry. The five Beckett pieces especially are not to be missed. (February)