Hollie McNish's third book in French arrives with jokes, curses and a question about consent
The British poet, interviewed in Marseille between two public readings, says she uses humour to make hard subjects easier to swallow. Her new French collection runs to 486 pages.
British poet Hollie McNish has published her third book translated into French, titled Je me demande pourquoi on ne peut pas dire non, tout simplement, according to Le Temps, which interviewed her in Marseille between two public readings. The collection runs 486 pages.
McNish told the paper she does not write at a desk: poems come to her on trains, over lunch with friends, while watching pasta boil, or in the supermarket. The resulting texts, she said, carry the trace of their setting and of her own voice, where laughter and swearing surface about as often as each other.
The book mixes poems with blunt titles — among them tout cramer, lingettes intimes and placenta — with long open-ended passages of personal reflection. According to Le Temps, these range from rollerblading and Greek mythology to cotton-candy-flavoured vapes, 'fetal microchimerism,' the Queen of England, cellulite, accent-based discrimination, personal trainers and oral sex. The paper notes that translation into French sometimes dulls the rhythm of McNish's English originals, though not their meaning.
Les humoristes à la télé/font des blagues/sur les migraines encore une fois/et toutes les femmes mariées/rient, et tous les maris/se donnent des coups de coude, et moi, assise sur le tapis/je ne comprends pas les blagues/je me demande pourquoi on ne peut pas/dire non, tout simplement
Hollie McNish, from the title poem, via Le Temps
Le Temps describes the collection's tone as 'jubilant,' with McNish offering what the paper calls reassuring, guilt-lifting advice scattered through the book's dense and wide-ranging material.
Sources
This article was written from these reports.