The immense poet and essayist Jacques Brault, who left us this week, leaves many orphans in the world of Quebec literature. His great culture was matched only by his humility, qualities that have made him a true inspiration over the decades.
Posted at 1:00 p.m.
Jacques Brault has joined his friend Gaston Miron in the pantheon of the greatest Quebec poets. The first advanced “on tiptoe”, the other favored more “the cry of salvation”, but both lived in “desperate hope”.
Novelist and essayist Yvon Rivard was a friend of Jacques Brault. They worked together on the magazine Freedom and at Radio-Canada. In the early 1990s, the poet had asked him to choose and present his texts in a mini-anthology prefaced by Hélène Dorion and published in 1996.
“As a novelist, I didn’t feel ready and he told me that he would simply wait for me. He wanted the eye of the prose writer. His poetry is wary of its own power and magic. The great object of his writing is time, as his masterpiece demonstrates, fragile moments. My text for the anthology was called “Unfinished Poetry, Open House”. His poetry opens us to the four winds, but puts us on the trail of who we are. »
Jacques Brault has won virtually all Quebec and Canadian literary awards for his poetry and essays. He has also won three Governor General’s Literary Awards: When we will be happy (theater), Agony (novel) and Transfiguration (translation).
A great essayist
Even if his collections will ensure his posterity, Yvon Rivard emphasizes that he was also a great essayist. The poet liked to tinker with the essential with words and language, like an admirable craftsman.
“Jacques was a library in itself. His book Miron the Magnificent and his critical study of Saint-Denys Garneau are very beautiful. He even worked on a translation of the Bible with Marie-Andrée Lamontagne. One cannot find better in literature than Jacques Brault. »
Born in Montreal, the poet taught for nearly 40 years at the University of Montreal where he himself had studied. A specialist in the Middle Ages, he had also studied at the University of Poitiers and the Sorbonne.
His poetry nevertheless breathed his modest origins. Tramps and other pests populated his books, which never hesitated to converse with death. The seasons, of which autumn was his favourite, are also very present in this non-lyrical poet, a writer of stripping, even of silence.
“His poetry is very faithful to the spirit of poverty,” says Yvon Rivard. The trend in which he was part is that of the voice that wants to be silent, to fade away to return to what existed before speech, at the dawn of the world. »
His nephew, Canada Council director Simon Brault, says he will always find solace in his uncle’s books despite the sadness of his passing. “Poetry is our refuge and Jacques has enlarged and embellished it forever. »
Kind and discreet
Poet and essayist Hélène Dorion explains that it was through the writings of Jacques Brault that she came to poetry. She describes him as a man of great kindness who liked discretion. She then worked with him as director at Éditions du Noroît.
“It is a deep loss. It has a very great importance in my life as a writer. He has always been able to link the universal and the intimate in his writing. In form, from one book to another, it has always been renewed. It’s a bit cliché to describe him mainly as a contemplative, because his writing was moving, was always on the move. »
At the head of Noroît, Hélène Dorion had the idea of recording readings by the poet that can be found on the web.
It is important to preserve the voices of our poets. He didn’t do much reading, but his low, deep voice reflected what he wrote with that fragile power. There was no difference between the writer, the teacher and the poet.
Helene Dorion
Also a literature teacher at the Cégep de Rimouski, the writer Marie-Hélène Voyer often quotes him in her classes and in her essay. The habit of ruinswho has just received the 2022 Jovette-Bernier Prize.
“I had read it when I was in Cégep and I had been struck by the language he used and what he said. I didn’t think we had the right to write like that. The path was important to him. He wrote in scraps in a wandering tongue. My students are interested in it because it brings them inwards, whereas today everything is aimed at the exterior. »
In his great wisdom, while “the newspapers were shouting at the top of their voices”, said Jacques Brault, he, the poet, was listening “for the thousandth time to the beginning of the world”.
To read and reread Jacques Brault
Poetry
MemoryDéom bookstore (1965)
The below the admirableUniversity of Montreal Press (1975)
fragile momentsNoroît (1984)
There is no more wayChillwind (1986)
The craftsmanNoroît (2006)
Trials
Miron the MagnificentUniversity of Montreal Press (1966)
Alain GrandboisSeghers (1972)
Saint-Denys-Garneauwith Benoît Lacroix, University of Montreal Press (1970)
In the night of the poemEditions du Noroît (2011)
Narrative
AgonyEditions du Sentier (1984)