ABSTRACT
In France, Jacques Réda’s writings are passed back and forth between friends with the enthusiastic secret sharing that one associates with fan clubs. Membership requirements in this case include an affection for the alexandrine, the line in which he writes nearly all his verse, and a taste for precise, sometimes speculative, sometimes tenderly ironic prose capable of countless emotional and visual effects. As Réda himself once remarked of the equally dazzling writings of Charles-Albert Cingria, “here, it’s language itself that sees, that enables one to see, that takes the reader for a delectable stroll.”
