The author of On the road was not exactly the same when he wrote in English, the language of his country, as when he wrote in French, the language of his mother Gabrielle-Ange. “This language in which Kerouac dreamed, this language in which he cried, it was the same as me, emphasizes Maxime Catellier. I too dreamed and cried in this language, even though I was writing in another. »
To speak a certain French on a daily basis, but to use another, more civilized one, between the pages of his books: any Quebec writer is naturally disposed to understand the linguistic schizophrenia which tore the good Jack apart. It is this gap that Maxime Catellier tries to cross in John sayswritten in French with a tenderly rough orality in January 2022, when the centenary of the American novelist and poet was marked.
Illuminations, sentences, thoughts, jokes fat and images brought back from childhood: these “111 poems for Ti Jean Kerouac” borrow from the most timorous of the representatives of the Beat Generation his smiling gravity, in brief texts reverent of the one who inspired them, although transcending the simple style exercise register.
But because poets never reveal themselves as much as when they pay homage to those they admire, Maxime Catellier inevitably ends up telling us a lot about his conception of writing and life – there really a difference between the two?
“If memories/were flies,” he observes in what can henceforth serve him as poetic art, “I would put sticky traps/everywhere on the ceiling/and worse, I would watch them/get taken prisoner/taking little sips/in the cloud of my cup”.
John says
Maxime Catellier
Cravan Goose
72 pages