Virginie Lalucq’s "Couper les Tiges" (Cutting the Stems) is a playful, long poem in sections that contains a pastiche of unlikely influences: horticultural guides, etymological dictionaries, books on gemstones and minerals, and others. The poem engages with complicated word play that evolves across the sections of the book, which made the task of translating both a pleasure and a challenge—the project took nearly 16 years to complete. |