Great Regulars: These "fiercely independent" poets--

a quality that [Stephen] Romer also stresses--represent an engaging kind of French writing too often overlooked abroad, partly because of the widespread notion that contemporary French poetry must necessarily be abstract, hermetic, narcissistic, and indigestible. In bold contrast, these seven poets relish daily life, observe nature closely, and occasionally evoke erotic attraction, as in [Jean] Follain's sketch cited above. [Guy] Goffette especially explores the latter theme, most recently in his series of prose reveries and phantasms, Presqu'elles (Gallimard, 2009). To return to the anthology, note the subtlety with which he passes, in "At Dusk, 2," from the vision of a brothel to a meditation on child- and adulthood:

from Powells: Review-A-Day: Strolling Out from the Self

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