While it is true that Pour Orchestre et Poète Seul could never have been written by an English language poet, it is equally true that D.G. Jones’ translation can be easily read as an English language poem, even though it has not lost too much of the essential flavour of its origin. This, of course, is the art of the translator. Jones seems always to improve at this game as book by book he translates the work of French Canadian poets for English Canadian readers.

Martel’s book has been with me for several months, Jones’ translation for only a few weeks, and so it is natural for me to be picking at a word here and there, and the reader may find herself doing the same, but this is hardly important and does not change the fact of Jones’ splendid translation.

For Orchestra and Solo Poet is a work of five parts in which the poet is making his way to his own interpretation and understanding of music, his way through the world of that other art, to its meaning for him, and its relation to his own work in the field of words. He feels himself alone on this journey. He’s not representing all poets; he is simply the solo poet faced by the immense orchestra of the musical universe.

In the first section (or should that be movement?) he describes the concert room, its decor, its aspects, and the instruments set out for the putative musicians in great detail. Most of this description is visual and tactile, and though there are a few references to the audial and a few worries about the acoustics, the reader is given the impression that, for this particular poet, music must first be approached through the eye and the hand before he can wholly open his mind to it.

In the second section he allows the music to enter his head through the ears. What a pain and a revelation this is to him. The instruments are joined by choirs, music/noise fills the air, and the poet is compelled to confront the meaning of silence.

In section three we are allowed into the open air where the poet begins to enjoy what’s going on; but has he in fact deserved this day, and what will happen when inevitable night must fall? It’s then that we come to another sense, that of smell. The air is perfumed with sound and incense. Can the mountains bring redemption? What has become of the poet, his words, his solitude?

We are now in the fourth section and the musicians are coming to him rather than he to them. They proceed towards the scholarly quarter where he lives. Bringing with them the music of everyday sounds and the fifth sense, that of taste, as they drink coffee and eat lunch together. At last the poet feels some sort of camaraderie with the musicians. In some way, is he one of them? After all, their contribution is small compared with the music of the universe.

Section five, and the poet, emboldened by this new understanding, now tries out the role of the conductor, a position of great power. But he doesn’t much care for it; after all, a poet is the composer as well as the conductor of his own work, which encompasses the whole world in all its degradation and splendour.

I hope I have succeeded in giving the reader some idea of this poem and of my enthusiasm for it. If so, I have no need to urge all readers to go out and buy this book and find out for themselves what Martel/Jones have to say about music, poetry, the five senses, and silence itself.