Poet Françoise Besnard Canter on the natural beauty of the Pacific Northwest

Each day during the month of April, KUOW is highlighting the work of Seattle-based poets for National Poetry Month. In this series curated by Seattle Civic Poet and Ten Thousand Things host Shin Yu Pai, you'll find a selection of poems for the mind, heart, senses, and soul.

In "Spit", Françoise Besnard Canter lingers on the detritus and decay of marine environments to return to a state of unadulterated beauty.

Françoise Besnard Canter was born in Paris and immigrated to the U.S. in 1989. She is a poet, a teacher, and a translator. She translated four collections of Robert Nash’s poems: "Maine "(2018), "Poèmes à un ami français / Poems to a French Friend" (2019), "Poèmes épars dans une chemise en carton vert / Scattered Poems Gathered in a Green Folder" (2021), and "1984" (2022), all published by À L’Index, Collection “Le Tire Langue” in bilingual editions. An English only compilation of the first three books of Nash’s poems was published by Down East Books, in 2022 under the title "When the Blue Goes." She teaches French and Comparative Literature at The Northwest School in Seattle.