In French, ‘il,’ the third person masculine singular pronoun, can also have no gender at all: il pleut means ‘it’s raining.’ In Dominique Fourcade’s IL, ‘il’ means ‘it’—but not exactly. Genderless, ‘it’ is the man-woman, the woman man—and the place where we are each other. Rather than exploit difference, Fourcade allows the sonority of the word to generate the curious masculine-feminine dialogue we all hear within us, if listening. Full of rich permutations, the resulting poems reveal an enormous resonance within this simple word as well as a zone of peace.
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DOMINIQUE FOURCADE is one of France’s leading poets, with over 20 books to his name. He is also an art critic; he has done extensive work on Henri Matisse, and has collaborated with contemporary artists and dancers on books and other projects. He lives in Paris.
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