La Semaison: Carnets 1954-1979

La Semaison: Carnets 1954-1979 (Seedtime)—Jaccottet’s notebooks—is an especially good introduction to this leading francophone Swiss author. It is by no means a diary, more a sketchbook, according to Jaccottet, winner of the Petrarch Prize. These prose observations, haiku-like annotations about nature, encounters, readings and dreams are far more than just simple private texts; they bear testimony to the incessant process of poetic self-inquiry and serve as the chronometer of a great poetic life.