Turning the stone Markus Hediger
Turn the stone -or Ne return past Pierre, by its original title in French, is a poetry anthology written by the Swiss translator and poet Markus Hediger between 1981 and 1995. The work was published for the first time in 1996 by the publisher l'Aire, Vevey. Later, the title was translated into other languages, such as German, Italian and Spanish.
Given that the author only writes poetry in French, and that he never translates a complete work into Spanish, the edition in this language took a while to reach the Spanish-speaking public, which finally happened in 2021 thanks to the Animal Sospechoso publishing house. Does not matter the time, The book remains a breath of fresh air when it comes to poetry, or so critics have claimed..
Synopsis of Turn the stone
When complicated poetry becomes simple
At this point, it is worth asking if it is possible to innovate in poetry. It might seem that everything has already been thought and written, but the work of Markus Hediger has shown the opposite, since In his lyrics it is possible to find his own and unexpected voice that is revealed with intensity. Although each word belongs to a list of those that are used every day, they are still brilliant.
The way in which Markus Hediger takes the most common phrases and catapults them into beauty is, to say the least, curious. His verses provide the reader with moments of joy and anguish., which is amplified thanks to the reading and recitation of the texts. Through this collection of poems it is possible to discern the author's creative process and the time he invested in his prose.
About wild feelings and childhood memories
En Turn the stone There are common words that are like fish in a river: they appear, move through the current and bring back those most tender feelings of childhood, accompanied by images with which all readers can identify. In addition, Markus Hediger's free words convey the moments he experienced at his parents' house.
In addition, there are protagonists, such as his elderly aunts and the friend who for the author was never completely dead. Markus Hediger's work has been slow and cautious. This can be measured by his self-demand, since this anthology It consists of seventy poems that have been written over forty years, a curiosity that is very reminiscent of the methodology of the haiku author Matsuo Bashô.
The sounds of a poetic silence
Markus Hediger insists on offering his verses almost without emphasis, in silence, with the glimpses of a life that refuses to give anything to talk about, but that has been fertile in creativity, happiness and experience. The secret of this type of poetry is its apparent simplicity, because it is through simplicity, making the complex easy to see, that the reader can find true depth.
The author's lyrical style has a clear guide, thanks to his upbringing anchored in Swiss-German culture. About, Markus Hediger's poetry tends to follow two aspects: the Gallic and the Germanic. The latter is responsible for his patient and calm vision, which remains timeless, only focusing on the most essential elements, such as the “four primordial elements.”
seven poems Turn the stone
“XIX”
Barely expelled from the fire of the outbreak and already promised to the
migratory birds blued by travel
yo
how much I would have liked to tie my hair to the stars,
knot my fingers to the roots of the reed
or better yet: dive to the very bottom of the mud.
"XX"
would have to go out
of the shadow between the books.
get rid of
of the slowness that governs
and go through the window...
…In the wind you would find
a new refuge for
tremble on the leaves
and you would finally read
the score of water.
"L"
This afternoon, under the soft March light, walking along the
city that saw me light up at night, I thought
in those of whom I have no news,
in those friends who live in the dew of the winds, that
loose land where they are one with their shadow.
“LIV”
I saw the sea again
of Aquitaine, my love,
your well loved sea.
There is the lighthouse, in front
to the coast, like that
late summer day
Oh, how far away already.
(But… was it really
here? The beach, would there be
changed so much?)
I stepped on the sand
cool of February, carrying
in my arms the little
that was still, so heavy
like mummies I always saw
and reliving your smile, my love, I poured my light heart into the basin of an old wind that I no longer heard.
“XLII”
Suppose that by miracle,
yes, if she, for something extraordinary,
come let's say for an hour
between us, if back from there
where the meat given a day is made
I found her, my mother
on the threshold of the door, a smile
getting into your eyes, or
in his chair installed before
the window that faces the street and the
sunset, knitting
apart, turning her face towards me,
the one from long ago, what words
to our lips, what words, yes, what to say
to whom did he pass from death to life?
“XII”
(To Mehmet Yaşın)
Poetry has seen fit to take me back,
even when? So I hurry to write
something: "One Sunday afternoon
at the window: hitting the heels
on the carpet in my room, I look
The rain falls and time passes, slowly,
not pass, pass, slowly, in Childhood.
Since poetry is good to me,
I continue, sitting in this cafe
of Istanbul where the waiters, all beauty
slender and youth, circulate around me:
«Here I am in today's room.
Here is the ancestral closet arrived,
through forgetfulness and times, to me.
My closet is a museum, a mausoleum,
according to. Museum keeping myths:
Checkered notebooks from the days when I was
teenager, where really
I felt like a great playwright in the making,
other blue notebooks of black worries
of my twenty years, thirty years… —so many sorrows
from the heart, questions, wounded questions
open—and all this ruminated until
satiety. Mausoleum enclosing mummies
above all, resurrectable at every moment,
Yes, but I no longer have the courage for that.
More like a mausoleum where they are stacked,
in some corner, quantities of cassettes
answering machine, voices never turned off.
Among others I would find my mother.
She has the air of not wanting to abandon me
So soon, I quickly add:
«My work table. Under papers,
glued, glued, my address book.
Full of names, still hot in my memory,
scratched, marked with crosses. Cypresses and willows.
Enough. Lift my nose from my notebook,
let my eyes slide over the faces
of the waiters. How they come and go and come.
Smooth the edges of this book of poems
where Grandfather is an olive tree of pain:
Constantinople no longer waits for anyone...
“XLV”
This portrait, framed photograph
in heavy dark wood, this portrait of a woman
young man with black hair, full lips
that, for a long time confined in a corner,
had probed the gloom and the seasons
from grandmother's attic, is... where?... but
What has become of him, that from the most distant
From his oblivion, he suddenly looks at me,
this afternoon leaning over the moss,
with his almost Latin burning eyes?
About the Author
Markus Hediger was born on March 31, 1959, in Zurich, Switzerland. He grew up in Reinach, canton of Aargau. Later, he finished high school in Aarau, where He studied French Literature, Italian Literature and Literary Criticism at the University of Zurich.. After completing his studies, he began translating books by writers from French Switzerland, among them: Alice Rivaz and Nicolas Bouvier.
On the other hand, this author has written poetry since he was nineteen years old, although from the beginning he has done so in French, since, according to him: "I also discovered that while I was writing in French all the words seemed new, fresh to me." Markus Hediger is a member of the Association of Authors and Authors of Switzerlanda, which he represented at the CEATL.
Other books by Markus Hediger
- Là pour me souvenir (2005);
- In Deçà de la lumière romésie II (1996-2007);
- Les Après-midi by Georges Schehadé (2009);
- Pour quelqu'un de vous se souvienne, Alla Chiara Fonte, Viganello Lugano (2013);
- L'or et l'ombre. Un seul corps, romésies I-III (1981-2016);
- Dans le cendier du temps, romésie III (2008 - 2021).