I Have Invented Nothing

This collection of Jean-Pierre Rosnay's poems brings together selections from all four of his major collections and a handful of previously unpublished poems. They include the far reaches of Rosnay’s technique and imagination, from the lapidary delicacy and romantic sensibility of “Refrain” to the prose-composition and social awareness of the “Political Poem,” which is as profoundly rooted in current French multiculturalism — and nearly as fanciful — as a novel by Daniel Pennac. Rosnay was born in 1926 and died in 2009. He was a fighter in the resistance and the founder of the Club des Poetes. Over a dozen of his poetry titles have been published in France and Europe and a number of books on his work and life have been published since his death. Translated and edited by Jim Kates.