Philip Mosley is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University. He earned his M.A. in European literature and his Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of East Anglia. He has translated The Intelligence of Flowers by Maurice Maeterlinck, Bruges-la-Morte by Georges Rodenbach, Tea Masters, Teahouses by Werner Lambersy, and October Long Sunday by Guy Vaes. In 2008 he was awarded the Prix de la Traduction Littéraire by the French Community of Belgium for his translations of Belgian authors into English.
Judges’ Citation
The poems in Philip Mosley’s translation are thus filled with a mysterious beauty; they have a sort of shimmering quality.
Selected poems
by Philip Mosley
It is midnight.
The coal of the hour burns out in white
embers.
Remains of souls flicker
in the grate.
The shadows
hurl themselves at the walls like torn
birds of prey.
We remain alone,
with that fire which tries to rekindle itself.
Copyright © Translation Philip Mosley 2010
from The Book of Snow
the French written by François Jacqmin
Gentlefolk stay at home.
Travel
reveals what is lamentable in the soul.
To go elsewhere is to
unstitch
the gather of innocence which innocence weaves
around our place.
It is the reason why I set great store on staying
at home amid my own things:
they are my common heartrending absolute.
Copyright © 2010 by Philip Mosley, translated from the French written by François Jacqmin, The Book of the Snow, Arc Publications
From The Book of the Snow
the French written by François Jacqmin