Ring Rang Wrong

Borrowed voices, invented voices, and a very personal but unplaceable voice all wind their way through these mock-philosophical meditations on nature and cosmos. Juxtaposed with her precise and abstract photographs, Doppelt’s text considers astronomy, weather, the five senses, plant life, the insect world, and the nature of time, all in an implicit dialogue with the pre-Socratics. Often funny, often wry, this book betrays an affectionate love for the world.

Some pre-Socratic fragments appear translated into a phonetic language by the composer Georges Aperghis.

While teaching philosophy and literature in Paris, Suzanne Doppelt developed an interest in photography and has ever since pursued a double career. Several of her books combine images and text. Among them Totem (2002), a book of mock-ethnology, La 4e des plaies vole (2004), which looks at flies, the 4th Biblical Plague, and our present book, Quelque chose cloche. Burning Deck has also, under the title OXO, published her photographic collaboration with Pierre Alferi’s poems, Kub Or.

At present Suzanne Doppelt is working on ghosts and what the fantastic logic of their appearances and disappearances might imply for an economy of the living.

Cole Swensen’s books of poetry include Noon (Sun & Moon) and, from University of Iowa Press, Try, Such Rich Hour, and The Book of a Hundred Hands.  She has translated Pierre Alferi, Olivier Cadiot, Pascalle Monnier and Jean Frémon. Both her poetry and her translations have won many prizes.