Gabriel Zimmermann is a French poet born in 1979 who lives and works in Paris. I first discovered one of his poems in an online journal and was drawn to it for its construction and voice. Though it was, on the surface, quite simple, it seemed to me that this poem, tight and flawless, could be written no other way, and there was an emotional core contained in its envelope of language. Here is that poem in its entirety: 

Do you know the story of the orphan
Who fell asleep grasping a gingko leaf
And woke up with a shell in his fist?

I don’t know what it means, but my teacher once
Told us it held a deep lesson
About time, that we would understand it
When we were grown and pondering abandonment

Thirty years have passed and the key remains misty

Does it mean that sleep is weighty,
That our visions may materialize
Or is it a nursery rhyme, just a rhyme
Recited by nightlight
To encourage parentless children
To dream on and on?

//

Connaissez-vous la légende de l’orphelin
Qui s’endort en serrant une feuille de Ginko
Et se réveille avec un coquillage dans le poing ?

J’ignore son sens mais autrefois, l’institutrice
Disait qu’elle contient une leçon riche
Sur le temps, que nous la comprendrions
Étant grands et pensifs sur l’abandon

Trente ans ont passé et sa clef préserve sa brume

Signifie-t-elle que le sommeil alourdit,
Que nos songes parfois se matérialisent
Ou est-elle une comptine, rien qu’une comptine
Récitée à la veilleuse
Pour exhorter les enfants sans parent
À rêver beaucoup ?

Many of the qualities that I enjoy and admire in Gabriel Zimmermann’s poetry are evident in this poem. There is a gentleness that carefully avoids sentimentality, a preoccupation with time and suffering, and a sense of not being able to give definitive answers, of acknowledging life’s mystery.

Eight Poems from Plus loin que l’atelier

Zimmermann has published six collections of poetry, none of which has yet appeared in English. The poems in this folio (except for the one above) are taken from his latest collection, Plus loin que l’atelier (“Past the Workshop,” Éditions Tarabuste, 2024), winner of the 2025 Prix Max Jacob, which has been described as France’s highest honor for poets. The poems are all untitled, which is not unusual for contemporary French poets, who often construct their collections in this way.

Zimmermann’s work stands out in the current poetry landscape in France through its solemnity and eloquence. He is not given to analyzing his approach, speaking of literary influences, or theorizing about poetry. But he is on record expressing his belief that “poetry must be a language that is ‘different’ and in some way ‘higher’ than other forms of written expression.” He capitalizes the first word of every line, creating a formal appearance visually on the page. He employs long lines that establish a rhythmic flow. While his poems do not follow patterns of syllabic count or rhyme, they feel more formally constructed than most free verse. I sense something mystical in his poetic voice, and it holds an echo of the mission of poetry as expressed by poets of earlier ages such as Victor Hugo or Paul Valéry. Zimmermann would certainly not lay claim to any such status, and his work is also imbued with humility and doubt, but in my eyes this connection is very real.

//

Zimmermann does, however, see himself as part of an age-old tradition of lyric poetry—one that has to a large extent been replaced on the French poetry scene by intellectual and experimental approaches. His poems are frequently based on observation of nature, as in the poem below:

The river water is cloudy,
The pebbles that darken its surface
Blend with evening’s first turquoise lines

On the shore the grasses and the willow branches
Standing behind let the wind cross through

A damp landscape receives human eyes
Seeking where gentleness could reside
After the day’s clashes facing a voracious
Sun—walking on the banks a feeling
Of neglect claims me, everything around
Seems to offer itself like an attentive host
Who bows to his guests
Welcoming them to his home—my eyes
Find this peace on a narrow line of earth
A few steps away, below the trout
That pass, a rippling treasure slipping by.

//

L’eau de la rivière est trouble,
Aux cailloux qui grisent sa surface
Se mêlent les premiers traits turquoise du soir

Sur la rive les herbes et le feuillage des saules
Qui se dressent derrière sont traversés par le vent

Un paysage humide accueille les yeux d’hommes
Qui cherchent où la douceur pourrait résider
Après des heurts parmi le jour face à un soleil
Vorace – en marchant sur les berges un goût
D’abandon me gagne, tout ce qui entoure
Semble s’offrir avec une prévenance d’hôte
Qui s’incline pour ses invités
En plus de les recevoir chez lui – mon regard
Trouve cette paix sur une étroite ligne de terre
À quelques pas, en dessous des truites
Qui passent, ondulation de trésor qui s’échappe.

//

Zimmermann’s work reflects landscapes in France but also farther afield, as in this poem about a markhor, a type of goat found in Pakistan with tall, ornately curled horns:

In the night of the mountain sleeps a markhor
On a rock, his young pressed against him.
Darkness unites them as during the day
When they eat grass on the cliffs.
With this early rest mingles a dream:
He mounts with his horns pointing toward a sky
Of ascension and now he is above the stone.
Overlooking his children with red eyes,
He climbs motionless among the unknown,
Joins the birds flying in the cold,
Filled with the pleasure of being carried off unawares:       
He who knows the earth, buds, and branches,
Now sniffs the delicious heights of shadow,
Crosses over the illusion made by clouds
Like piercing a second fog
And approaching the moon, other outlines
Of the snow are reflected in his pupils.
If words could come to his mouth
Would he call this rocketing moment a voyage?  
The dream goes on, increasingly sweet
As he leaves behind the land
Where he and his family were born. On his right
A comet crosses the air like a smile
In its line of yellow ice and dust
Before he sees his little ones, below,
Nestled in sleep, suspecting nothing
While he continues toward the stars.

//

Dans la nuit de la montagne un markhor dort
Sur un rocher, ses petits couchés contre lui.
L’obscurité les unit comme pendant le jour
Quand ils mangent l’herbe sur les escarpements.
À ce premier repos se mêle un songe,
Il monte dans ses cornes qui se dressent vers un ciel
D’ascension et le voici au-dessus de la pierre,
Surplombant ses enfants avec des yeux rouges,
Il gravit immobile parmi l’inconnu,
Rejoint les oiseaux qui volent dans le froid,
Rempli du plaisir d’être emmené sans savoir :
Lui qui connaît la terre, les bourgeons, les branches,
Il hume les suaves hauteurs de l’ombre,
Franchit l’illusion faite par les nuages
Comme la traversée d’un second brouillard
Et en s’approchant de la lune, les autres contours
De la neige se reflètent dans ses pupilles.
Si des mots pouvaient venir sur sa bouche
Nommerait-il voyage ce moment de fusée ?
Le rêve se poursuit, d’une douceur grandie 
À mesure qu’il s’éloigne du territoire
Où lui et sa famille sont nés. Sur sa droite
Une comète parcourt l’air qui semble sourire
Dans sa ligne de glace jaune et de poussière
Avant d’apercevoir les siens, en bas,
Blottis dans un sommeil ne pressentant rien
Pendant qu’il continue vers les étoiles.

//

Zimmermann goes on lengthy hikes in the Forest of Fontainebleau, located about thirty-five miles southeast of Paris (a former hunting ground of the kings of France and a site of inspiration for artists in the past, including Impressionist painters). His explorations of the forest have had a strong influence on him creatively. His observations of its unique landscape are often connected to the deep sense of history and geological time it contains. 

In the forest, an old man with a black cocker spaniel
Told me the fountain is near the road,
Before the crossroads where a big beech tree grows,
In a clearing, and with each word describing it
He had a voice of gentle certainty.

Here I am at the place he indicated,
A circle of short grass, where two low walls meet,
Painted white, with a tree growing inside.

Here, the spring where friends used to gather?
No name engraved on it, no date.
The stone, when I touch it, is dry.

The man with the dog would insist or contradict.
With him, facing this crudely built place,
Skepticism would end, and beyond seeing his face
I imagine him urging me to seek.

A few steps away, where the thickets return,
There’s the discreet seduction of the shade.
Toward this arch of greenery and rock I advance
And a nook appears, like a window
For the earth, where a thin water spills, almost extinguished.

//

Dans la forêt, un vieillard avec un cocker noir
M’a répondu que la fontaine est près de la route,
Avant le carrefour planté d’un gros hêtre, 
Sur une clairière et dans chacun des mots qui la décrivaient,
Il avait une voix de douce certitude.

Me voici à l’endroit qu’il a indiqué,
Un cercle d’herbes courtes, avec deux murets en angle,
Peints en blanc, où un arbre a poussé dedans.

Ici, la source où se rassemblaient des amis ?
Pas de nom gravé dessus, pas de date.
La pierre, en y passant la main, est sèche. 

L’homme au chien renchérirait ou contredirait, 
Avec lui, face à ce lieu grossièrement maçonné,
Le scepticisme finirait et plus loin que revoir son visage, 
Je l’imagine exhortant à chercher. 

À quelques pas, où les fourrés reprennent,
Comme une discrète séduction vient de l’ombre.
Vers cette arche de feuillage et de roches j’avance
Et une niche m’apparaît, semblable à une fenêtre
Pour la terre, d’où sort une eau maigre, presque éteinte.

//

One unusual feature of the Forest of Fontainebleau is the presence of rare sandstone concretions called gogottes that date to the Oligocene Period (approximately 30 million years ago). They have a pale, flowing appearance that makes them look like abstract sculptures (and, in fact, they are sometimes sold as art objects). Their strange forms influenced twentieth-century sculptors such as Louise Bourgeois and Henry Moore. I learned about them in one of Zimmermann’s poems, where they represent a mind-blowing expanse of time beyond any human scale.

You say the earth is rich to hold
Pottery shaped by hands one thousand years before us.
To your hotheaded friends you show the sea,
Its waves crashed before humans
Touched their faces. To those who value haste
You talk of gogottes, their sand hardened into foamy stones.

With our lives contracted over a handful of decades,
Hearing you troubles me, I don’t want any more words from you
And if you keep it up I will want to leave.

I don’t have eyes for the vast waters that know nothing of us, 
My gaze lingers on the insects that we will outlive
And turns away from the noon sky, its light
Spills without us, reduces us to what little we are.  

After this confession, will you respond as in the past
When at age twenty we dismissed time,
Imagining a destiny that would not conclude in death?
Now that our eyelids droop,
Will you, can you carry on this dream?

We age together and our words collide
When you celebrate slowness, and I, speed.
Coming upon someone stationary on a beach

“I would be pitiless: why do you contemplate?
Do not be a child of patience,
Condemn long rests, walk without questioning the route:
Clearsighted or naïve you will escape no season,
Even a coma does not stop wrinkles.

Only seeds, dormant ten centuries long,
Can flower.”

//

Tu dis que la terre est riche d’abriter
Les poteries pétries par des mains mille ans avant nous.
À tes amis sanguins tu montres la mer,
Ses vagues déferlaient avant que les hommes
Touchent leurs visages. À ceux qui prisent la hâte
Tu racontes les gogottes, leur sable a durci en pierres moutonnées.

Par nos vies contractées sur une poignée de décennies
T’entendre me trouble, je n’ai pas envie de plus de mots de toi
Et si tu renchéris celle de m’éloigner viendra.

Je n’ai pas les yeux de l’eau immense qui nous ignore,
Mon regard s’attarde sur les insectes auxquels nous survivons
Et se détourne du ciel de midi, sa lumière
Se répand sans nous, ramène au peu que nous sommes.

Après cet aveu, répondras-tu comme autrefois
Quand à vingt ans nous éconduisions le temps,
Imaginant une destinée qui ne se conclurait pas dans la mort ?
Maintenant que s’affaissent nos paupières,
Voudras-tu, pourras-tu perpétuer ce rêve?

Nous vieillissons ensemble et nos paroles se heurtent
Quand tu célèbres la lenteur, moi la vitesse.
En croisant quelqu’un immobile sur une plage

“Je serais virulent pourquoi tu contemples ?
Ne sois pas un enfant de la patience,
Réprouve les longs repos, marche sans questionner le trajet :
Clairvoyant ou naïf tu n’échapperas à aucune saison,
Même le coma n’empêche pas de rider.

Seules les graines, après une dormance de dix siècles,
Peuvent fleurir.”

//

Zimmermann’s poetry is about an encounter with the world—or, perhaps, with another person, as in the poem above describing different attitudes toward time. His approach feels accessible to an English-language reader, as it is thematically linked to English Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Keats, or, closer to our own time, to the poetry of Jane Kenyon. At the same time, the structure of his poems can be complex, with sudden shifts in tone or focus, and this requires concentration and effort to understand. Reading him, I wonder: is there a philosophy in his poetry? In all poetry, perhaps? If the answer is yes, then Zimmermann’s philosophy lies in the awareness that a subjective consciousness is shaping the world around it—but in unpredictable ways, sometimes through conflict. The personal in Zimmermann’s work is never confessional; there is a distance between the speaker and what is being observed or experienced. The je (and this first-person pronoun appears sparingly) is somehow at a remove. The personal becomes universal through the gift and craft of language.

Under a faded sky, heavy with rain,
Poverty awakens me—this sensation of a heart cut close,
Does it come after a night without dreams
Or at the sight of the clouds, gray like dirty panes?
Does the appetite for nothing take hold like landing
On an island, arms bare, with ignorant eyes,
Forced to move forward to explore it?   

The cloying void that starts the day loosens
Several lacks: father of no one, owner of nothing,
I’m an unfinished fruit, ready to rot
When a jolt runs through me—a bolt of storm
In my veins—and on this morning of nullity
As my eyes and lips make holes facing the horizon
That grows light, favor commences
And as milk is thinned in ink,
The dark moistness of the self is dimmed.

//

Sous un ciel délavé, pesant de pluie,
La pauvreté me réveille – cette sensation de cœur à ras,
Vient-elle après une nuit sans avoir rêvé
Ou à la vue des nuages, par leur gris de vitres sales ?
L’appétit pour rien prend-il comme le débarquement
Sur une île, les bras nus, le regard fait d’ignorance,
Contraint d’avancer pour la découvrir ?

Le vide pâteux qui commence le jour secoue
Plusieurs manques : père de personne, propriétaire de rien,
Je me sens fruit inaccompli, prêt à pourrir
Quand un sursaut me traverse – un trait d’orage
Dans mes veines – et ce matin de nullité
Où les yeux, mes lèvres font des trous face à l’horizon
Qui s’éclaire, une faveur s’amorce
Et comme le lait se dilue dans l’encre,
L’obscure moiteur de soi-même s’estompe.

//

At the same time, Zimmermann expresses an awareness that the pathetic fallacy—the notion of seeing our own feelings and moods reflected in the natural world around us—is indeed a fallacy. Humans—singly or as a group—are not the center of the universe.

The rain falls and does not announce a flood
The sun beats and does not parch the land
The evening spreads with no grip of fear    
The tree loses its leaves and fall does not pronounce death

On the road marred with ruts what danger?
In the melon turned black what threat?
On the crest of the mountains what vengeful god?
In a crater what absence? In mud what is ugly?

This gaze that no longer finds itself facing
Wounded things—it came to me late,
A single landscape did not bring it forth,
I had to learn to extinguish in my eyes the thirst
To graft everything to human fractures
So I could see shells, waves in the night,
Lakes of green water, rockslides

—The real that does not ask after our hearts.

//

La pluie tombe et ne présage pas d’une crue,
Le soleil frappe et n’assèche pas la terre,
Le soir s’étend sans que la frousse s’y agrippe,
L’arbre perd ses feuilles et l’automne ne dit pas une mort

Sur la route criblée d’ornières quel danger ?
Dans le melon qui a noirci quelle menace ?
Sur la crête des montagnes quel dieu revanchard ?
Dans un cratère quelle absence ? Dans la boue quelle laideur ?

Ce regard qui ne trouve plus des choses blessées
Devant lui, il m’est venu tard,
Un seul paysage ne l’a pas fait naître,
J’ai dû apprendre à éteindre dans mes yeux la soif
De tout greffer à des fêlures humaines
Pour scruter les coquillages, les vagues dans la nuit,
Les lacs d’eau verte, les éboulements de roches

– Un réel qui ne demande pas après nos cœurs.

//

When translating Gabriel Zimmermann’s work, I attempt to recreate the balance and rhythm that structure his poetic line, paying attention to its interesting enjambments. I also strive to find creative ways of reproducing (not replicating) the poems’ assonance and alliteration in English using other words and other combinations of sounds. His use of language is always precise and there is usually a physicality or a sensation behind it, even when he is describing something abstract. He uses words in unexpected ways, often linking opposing concepts, as in the “horde / Of peace” (in French, meute / De paix) in the poem below. 

Zimmermann also employs punctuation in ways that are unusual for English. French allows independent clauses to be connected with commas (the forbidden “comma splice” in English). Because poetry must obey its own rules, I usually maintain these lines connected by commas, as they create energy and allow the lines to breathe together. At times, I use a dash or a period instead, when I feel that a break is needed in English or that an English-language reader is likely to get lost. Sometimes periods are absent from Zimmermann’s poetry, and other times they appear. I generally follow these choices. This creates a sense of something unfinished or incomplete in the speaker’s perception. While there is a strong sense of tradition in Zimmermann’s work, there is also experimentation. Indeed, I think any poem can be called experimental, because it exists as something never seen before, and this reminds me that expérience in French means both “experience” and “experiment.”

There is both darkness and joy in Gabriel Zimmermann’s work, which is characterized by a profound quest for meaning and an unflinching look at the world around him. I feel sometimes that I can observe the poet surprising himself as a poem develops in unexpected ways, and I experience that same surprise when translating, and hope to pass it on to readers in English.

The hand I held at night appears
In a memory without regret, what is lost
Need not be mourned but her palm
Returns like a hot pearl clasped
In a fist—touching it, fears faltered, 
Disappeared—and flinching at the past
Became absurd, between her fingers
I found love that is not a question

Sleep came so soon like a horde
Of peace, near her nothing could hurt,
Wounds were no more than caustic froth
Amassed too far to wash up onto the room

And through the darkness my gaze ended
On her body to unite with her
In a river of rest.

//

La main qui je serrais la nuit surgit
Dans un souvenir sans regret, ce qui est perdu
N’a pas à être pleuré mais sa paume
Revient comme une perle chaude étreinte
Dans le poing – à son contact les peurs s’essoufflaient
Avant de disparaître – et tressaillir du passé
En devenait ridicule, entre ses doigts
Je trouvais l’amour qui n’est pas une question

Aussitôt le sommeil arrivait comme une meute
De paix, auprès d’elle rien ne pouvait meurtrir,
Les blessures n’étaient plus qu’une mousse acide
Amassée trop loin pour s’échouer sur la chambre

Et à travers l’ombre mon regard finissait
Sur son corps pour m’unir à elle
Dans un fleuve de repos

 //

Facing the mirror I find an answer
To the line under the eyes we call time,
This arc that is not a wound on the skin
Brings peace won after inner riot

Here I am with a face where collapse begins—
Do the wrinkles that ridge the cheekbones
Introduce another season in humans
The way leaves redden at summer’s end?
This question dies out by accepting the life
That has engraved itself on cheeks, temples, forehead

Now tomorrow extends in lavish nakedness.  
Not knowing the colors dawn will take
Preserves the possibility of being enthralled
And the eyelids by opening will confirm
That we have not finished being born.

//

Face au miroir je trouve une réponse
Au pli sous les yeux que nous appelons le temps,
Cet arc qui n’est pas une blessure de la peau
Remplit d’une paix conquise après l’émeute intérieure

M’y voici au visage où s’affaisser commence,
Les rides tracées sur les zygomatiques
Introduisent-elles une autre saison chez les hommes
Comme les feuilles roussissent à la fin de l’été ?
Cette question s’éteint par l’accueil d’un vécu
Qui s’est gravé sur les joues, les tempes, le front

Après elle demain s’étend d’une nudité prodigue,
Ignorer quelles couleurs aura l’aurore
Maintient la possibilité d’être subjugué
Et les paupières en s’ouvrant confirmeront
Que nous n’avons pas fini de naître.