The Landscape Is Behind the Door

Like Ashbery's own work, this debut collection by a little-known French poet invokes a poetic which is difficult to grasp, consequently giving the poetry a tincture that makes it all the more engaging. Many of the poems rely on the juxtaposition of surrealist imagery and deadpan simplicity, both carefully rendered with an eye for detail (gestural words like ``void'' or ``nothingness,'' the totems of much 20th-century French poetry, are refreshingly absent). Ambitious in his range of themes, Martory can be celebratory (``Let's climb the roofs as far as the lightning-rods''), brooding or arrestingly psychological (``There is the wound I give myself / While I was looking for the wound you gave me''). Occasionally, while reaching for more visceral imagery, the work falls flat with a phrase like ``magma of memory.'' Martory is at his best in the sensual, melancholic and frequently beautiful longer poems toward the end of the collection. The poem ``Toten Inseln'' begins with a friend asking ``how you journeyed,'' and with a breezy weariness the speaker recalls the confusion and evanescence of his earlier years. ``Where was I going with no other map than a mirror?'' he asks himself. Ashbery's translations, which run opposite the French originals, impeccably preserve the vibrant richness of Martory's highly accomplished poetry. (Apr.)