Tellermann, Esther 1947–

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Tellermann, Esther 1947–

PERSONAL: Born 1947, in Paris, France. Education: Graduate of École Normale Supérieure.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, Flammarion, 26 rue Racine, Paris 75278, France.

CAREER: Educator and poet. Teacher in Paris, France.

WRITINGS:

POETRY, EXCEPT AS NOTED

Première apparition avec épaisseur (title means "First Appearance with Thickness"), Flammarion (Paris, France), 1986.

Trois plans inhumains (title means "Three Inhuman Plans"), Flammarion (Paris, France), 1989.

Distance de fuite (title means "Outdistance Escape"), Flammarion (Paris, France), 1993.

Pangéia, Flammarion (Paris, France), 1996.

Guerre extrême (title means "Extreme War"), Flammarion (Paris, France), 1999, selections translated by Keith Waldrop published as Mental Ground, Burning Deck Press (Providence, RI), 2002.

Encre plus rouge (title means "Redder Ink"), Flammarion (Paris, France), 2003.

Une odeur humaine (prose; title means "A Human Odor"), Farraro Léo Scheer, 2004.

Work represented in anthologies, including Anthologie de la poésie française au XVIIIème au XXème siècle (title means "Anthology of French Poetry from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century"), Gallimard (Paris, France). Contributor to literary journals, including Banana Split, Poésie, Action Poétique, Ralentir Travaux, Scherzo, Nouveau Recueil, Nioques, Étrangère, and Moriturus. Member of editorial board, Célibataire.

SIDELIGHTS: Esther Tellermann is a French poet and educator who also has an interest in psychoanalysis, which she applies as editor of the journal Célibataire. In reviewing her third collection, Distance de fuite, in World Literature Today, Michael Bishop called Tellermann "a poet at once ethically and ontologically very much focused upon her experience of the concrete world," as well as "a fine and discreetly urgent poetic voice that should be heard and meditated."

The poems collected as Pangéia refer to the events of the Holocaust, although nowhere in the volume is that dark point in history directly mentioned. The first sec-tion of the book, "Train sans paysages," offers images of people being transported like cattle in boxcars without windows. The poems portray suffering and burial, and at the conclusion of the section promise redemption for those who have survived. The second part, titled "Tentation," focuses on a new Exodus across the desert to an unnamed sea. That sea has been crossed in the last section, named for the collection's title; Tellermann writes of a new beginning, or Genesis, on the eighth day, when the earth becomes renewed through sound and sight. Mechthild Cranston wrote in World Literature Today that, "moving between 'le vide et l'évènement,' as sand would, blown by the wind, Tellermann's poetry arrives at a presence that subsists … above and beyond the fissures in the texture of the earth and the text of language."

Bishop reviewed Guerre extrême, saying that "Tellermann continues her dense and fragmented narrative quest in the at once pugnacious and tautly serene poems" of this collection. A number of these poems were translated and published in English by Burning Deck Press as Mental Ground.

In a review of Tellerman's Encre plus rouge, Bishop described the poet as "an important and distinctive voice." The critic asserted that, with the publication of this 2004 collection, "the long, patient, exploded poetic narrative of Esther Tellermann continues to evolve and even dramatically surprise."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

World Literature Today, winter, 1994, Michael Bishop, review of Distance de fuite, p. 83; winter, 1997, Mechthild Cranston, review of Pangéia, pp. 109-110; summer, 2000, Michael Bishop, review of Guerre extrême, p. 632; May-August, 2004, Michael Bishop, review of Encre plus rouge, p. 85.