For Gilles Ortlieb, the day's ration is hard won. He takes the art of noticing to a new level, petrifying us with moments of bleakness and ushering us out of them through his humanity. He states things as they are, with exactitude, with authenticity, with humour, and his voice is compelling. Ortlieb is among the very best poets writing in France today, and this bi-lingual selection of his work will cement his growing reputation in the anglophone world.
'A poet of uprootedness and displacement, with a uniquely gentle and rueful wit.'
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
'It is no disservice to Gilles Ortlieb not to place him among the "visionaries". Rather, he is possessed of an eye that can discern, within the thicket of the real, the unnoticed, which may be its accessory or its reject. For the unnoticed is also this: the thing we conceal from ourselves.'
JACQUES RÉDA
'Reading the poems of Gilles Ortlieb, one's focus is never blurred. Rather, everything is extraordinarily distinct. One emerges with clearer vision, and with an increased interest in the world.'
JEAN-PIERRE LEMAIRE