Victim in 2018 of an attempted sexual assault and murder, Geneviève Rioux refuses to be silenced. She chose to translate her painful experience into poetry and her collection, Survivals, bears witness to what she has been through and to her absolute desire to find meaning in her life. In an interview, this doctoral student in psychology, who will soon be 30, talks about the saving power of words and poetry as a tool of justice.
Geneviève Rioux survived a feminicide and wrote this collection of poetry as a recovery of power and freedom, and as a great quest for meaning, following tragic events that have none. Throughout the poems, she shares a reflection on the improbable repetition of violence, experienced from mother to daughter, in distant places and times.
Geneviève, with great beauty in writing, but implacable firmness, also gives voice to the suffering of a family, to that of friends and girlfriends, relatives and acquaintances, all victims of this violence.
The psychologist and poet talks about reparation, healing, the quest for meaning and justice, but reminds us that she has good days and bad days, and that she keeps the aftermath of this aggression. It will never erase what happened, she agrees, but “it will make it easier to live with it”.
She presents neither a testimony, nor her memoirs, nor the story of what she experienced. But his work is essential, authentic, strong, rich in lessons, both over the words of each poem and between the lines.
writing to heal
“When the events happened, we were in a strong moment of investigation and there are many things that I could not tell about my experience. I have always used writing to reflect on my life. At that time, I needed to write to relate to myself, and also, possibly, to give access to it to my loved ones. I started to tell the story of what I experienced. »
She met the writer David Goudreault during a book fair and told him about her writing project. “He brought the idea to be published. It has become a tool of justice for me. My speaking out will be my tool of justice. »
“Poetry is very strong. In a few words, there are so many images that are used, it’s so strong that it allows you to say everything without detailing like in a story. »
Beyond recounting the experience of the attack, which took place on April 8, 2018, in Sherbrooke, Geneviève— Rioux adds that poetry, for her, is really a way of looking back on what that happened. “It was important to me that it be accessible, even if it’s poetry. It is a poetry that is rather clear. The author talks about regaining power, a search for meaning and a repair that there is still to be done.
release the emotions
Geneviève Rioux notes that certain poems allowed her to release aggressiveness and thinks that the range of emotions is well explored. “I go into anger, I go into helplessness, I go into doubt, into resentment, sadness, bitterness. But at the same time, there is always something that brings me back to the fact that I am alive. »
The writer David Goudreault signs the afterword of the book and his text is powerful. “If eighteen stab wounds didn’t stop you, nothing will now. You write the codes of your own reconstruction, without aggressiveness or shortcuts, inhabited only by the just right to be heard, read, listened to. »
EXTRACT
” I want to live life
Your clenched teeth are hissing
I told you not to scream
But I learned since 1999, the resistance
We defend ourselves
to split
violated
From mother to daughter
Survivals
From daughter to mother »
- Geneviève Rioux was born in 1992 in Bas-du-Fleuve.
- She is a psychologist and works at the CIUSS de l’Estrie, in Sherbrooke.
- She discovered poetry from childhood thanks to The wardrobe of days by Gilles Vigneault.