Ian Monk’s 14 × 14, here translated from the original French by Philip Terry and the author, is a collection of fourteen poems, interspersed with interludes, all of them fit between a prelude and coda—a sort of mille-feuille made with alternating layers of the lost and regained purity of love and the world’s brutally intimate indifference.
Here for example why not while waiting
for elsewhere and having been somewhere else too
just recently in this ascent straight
towards wherever and anyhow leading to
needful things to fill in the time
your brains too or what’s left of them dunno
as for me what’s on the box tonight spare a dime
and what about going to a museum or the opera lol?
Ian Monk was born in London and is now based in Paris, France. He is the author of numerous books (mostly in French, some in English) and has also translated a large number of authors (Perec, Roussel, Le Tellier …). He has been a member of the Oulipo since 1998.