Trás-os-Montes by José-Flore Tappy

Trás-os-Montesby José-Flore Tappy translated from the French by John Taylor Trás-os-Montes is remarkably illustrative of Tappy’s light touch, sharp eye, and deep-probing meditations on what is worth preserving from our haphazard being in the world. She increasingly creates a compelling sense of intimacy and outlines an existential journey. Has her quest, on the other side of the mountains, attained its goal? Nearly at the end, she tenders a conclusion in which the “you,” the man who has died and whose presence she is seeking, perhaps also applies to herself:             In this place without an origin,            remote from the living,            I find you again at last,            make you out —John Taylor, from the “Translator’s Preface” José-Flore Tappy’s poetry is like a rare song that rises only when it is pressured by necessity; and this necessity is that of a struggle not to fall, not to sink. For one who distrusts lyrical mirages, this song is as rare as water wells in the