The nature of self
“In the harsh beauty of things” comes to us a very beautiful collection of Hélène Harbec. “As if the chest was uncovered / you could put your hand in it / take the heart out of its cage” to listen to both the pain of a separation and the beating of an unquenchable thirst for existence. As the two parts of the collection are very dissimilar, we can better understand the scope of this intense writing which entrusts us with its “little meager faith”. And it is in and by nature that life will resume its course, in line with an inhabited introspection. Long stays in writing residency will hatch Thirty-seven acres of solitude in descriptive texts, almost whispered, following the dance of the hours: “Five o’clock in the morning. A blackbird sings / farther than the wind. / The wind is closer to me / than the bird,” the author gently confides to us. It is sometimes disarmingly simple: “Sunday. Bells of Pré-d’en-Haut. // Food basket in hand, a woman runs in the rain […] // I smile every time in it. We too, as we read.
Hugues Corriveau
The Fallout of Disorder, followed by Thirty-seven Acres of Solitude
★★★1/2
Hélène Harbec, Le Noroît, Montreal, 2023, 184 pages
Precarious intimacy
Under the aegis of the great Luxembourg poet Anise Koltz, whose superb verses he has us read, this collection remains subservient to the “I” of confidence, to the detriment of in-depth and original writing. What clumsiness the poet puts into describing her inner turmoil in wanting to achieve the greatest simplicity, to such an extent that the very search gets in the way! Is it the wording that gets stuck here: “My sentences / stuck / in their walls // I boiled down / to a smile”? However, he must release the “mute child / in [s]a chest” or manage to make people hear “ [s]are thunderbolts in gestation”. We could say it better, as the poet manages to do when she leaves these restless tremors. Thus, this beautiful passage lost in a poem confirms it to us: “I bent down / to pick up the tears / as one picks up marbles / on the way // kept them / for later”. Or again, when she specifies: “this mute interval / between things / I take it as my home”. It must be said that the task is great for those who “relearn oxygen / the living”.
Hugues Corriveau
Break the waters
★★★
Joanne Morency, “Poetry” hammock, Montreal, 2023, 72 pages
Clear the streets
First collection of poetry by Lauriane Charbonneau, Get forgotten around the corner was written during the wave of denunciations of the summer of 2020, and there are many verses that resonate with its emancipatory voice. Laced in eight parts, the collection alternates between a virulent charge against these “self-forgiven messiahs / baptized in mourning / of their careers” and an intimacy that seeks its air, bruised by ordinary violence or inevitable bereavement: “I built rafts / for those humans who run away from me”. The narration of a toxic romantic relationship seems more conventional, but this intimacy brings out a powerful anger with loose words. Embracing these “body-scene-of-crime”, Lauriane Charbonneau nourishes the movement and offers flesh and verve to its struggle: “their life of wide legs / exposing the package / I always forget / we are born. / on the other side of the bench / muscular thighs with force / creaking of the knees”.
Yannick Marcoux
Get forgotten around the corner
★★★
Lauriane Charbonneau, Hashtag, Montreal, 2023, 92 pages
before the road
Maxime Catellier was returning from a house built on the Canada-US border, listening to the voice of Jack Kerouac on the radio, when the poetic suite was born John says. 111 poems for Ti Jean Kerouac. Reconnecting with the orality of this language that cradled Kerouac’s dreams, the poet takes the road of memories that he has already recounted, “in a book / lost in the snow / which fell / yesterday”. The result is 111 poems, short, some of which flirt with aphorism, releasing encapsulated memories and furtive thoughts, many of which concern language. Openly trivial — “The time / I pissed in my panties / at the coliseum”), the collection gives the impression that Maxime Catellier put everything in a breath that, too often, stifles his magnificent flights: “she is there the language / secret of grandma / far from the rubbish / that we pile up / in the drum / all winter long / I already knew / to speak it / before I was told / that it was not the same / that it was necessary to say / the words”.
Yannick Marcoux
John says. 111 poems for Ti-Jean Kérouac
★★★
Maxime Catellier, Cravan’s Goose, Montreal, 2023, 72 pages