Tracing English. "Calques", by Javant Biarujia. [review]

Abstract

This book collects Javant Biarujia’s ‘calques’, forty-four poems and prose pieces that copy, trace and otherwise interpret bits and pieces of Raymond Queneau’s "L’Instant Fatal", Paul Eluard’s "Capitale de la Douleur" and Jacques Derrida’s "Éperons: Les Styles de Nietzsche". Biarujia treats each in a seperate section — ‘Q.’, ‘E.’ and ‘D.’ — and each section has a distinct ambience and focus. But the influences circulate: "Calques" is full of pataphysics, game-playing, surrealism, anti-colonialism, mimicry and collage. Quite a few of the poems offer alternative versions of the French, and all can be read as ‘interpretations’, but they also generate strange new worlds and exceptional lingos of their own.