Since 1947, when his work first began to appear, Philippe Jaccottet has published six volumes of poetry, two of criticism, three of prose-poetry, and several translations from the German. Seedtime (’’La Semaison’’)––the title he has given to his notebook journals written from 1954 through 1967––is an especially good introduction to this leading post-war French author, containing as it does passages in both prose and verse. In explaining the word semaison, Jaccottet has drawn a parallel between his sense of the yearly scattering of seed––the sacredness of the act, the uncertainty of its results––and the sense he has of poetry and the written word.…