‘Part uni-, part bi-, part tri-lingual, Errances springs brilliant from Dominique Hecq’s intuitive reflections on intellectual, philosophical and physical wanderings; from ‘loss’, ‘the mechanics of steps’ and ‘wherever you come from or are’; and from the unfolding of etymologies, the ‘relationship between oneself and the other’ and 21st century anxieties. As affected by a work as they are by a word, as attentive to the world as they are to the body, as absorbed in other languages as they are in her mother tongue, these poems balance ‘lull’ and ‘leap’, ‘shadow’ and ‘light’, ‘violence’ and compassion. They are serious and witty, controlled and fervent, lyric and experimental. Dominique Hecq’s Errances is a smart, unswerving and dazzling collection.’
Stuart Barnes
‘A chapbook of stunning breadth and depth, Errances explores the power of language to imagine, construct, and take apart our internal and external worlds. The writing brims with a playful linguistic curiosity that belies the seriousness of the themes Hecq is engaging with – how language mediates experience, how writing is an act of resistance/existence, the dissonance inherent in inhabiting – or being inhabited by – multiple languages in a country that clings to monolingualism.
By placing several languages in direct and indirect conversation, Hecq creates a symphonic landscape, in which she is explorer and guide. Errances invites the reader to wander with the poet through myriad connections and disconnections, resonances, and discoveries as she negotiates questions of belonging and being in a land that is both hostile and home.’
Nadia Niaz