Anne-Marie Desmeules is an essential poet among those who regularly examine the reality of women. In the wake of his collections tendon and bone (L’Hexagone, Governor General’s and Booksellers’ Prize in 2019) and Still life with knife (Quartanier, 2020), this new book is reminiscent of the approach of the late Josée Yvon by addressing what quivers most vulnerable in them.
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In cravings, they are invisible or neglected, bastardized or abandoned, their desires and jealousies, often, unmentionable. They are the ones who, night after night, will “return to the nightmare”, “buy death” and “deviate [leur] black soul” between enjoyment, suicide and feminicide. They suffer from self-loathing and self-loathing of others, but try to exist despite everything.
The collection is made up of eight parts, distinct in their rhythms and styles, also playing on significant sounds. In just a few lines, what begins as a description continues as a reflection. A poem for a narrative time takes surreal aspects a little further.
The poet goes from “I” to “she” and returns to “I” in this collection dedicated to her “friends”. The great quality of Anne-Marie Desmeules’ writing, since her beginnings, is to seize open wounds, to show them as they are, without false modesty with all the necessary amorality.
cravings uses strong, raw images, of a dazzling truth. The poet carries a word that comes from the entrails, makes her way between dark thoughts and disappointed hopes to emerge in a transcendent poetry, like a “cry of true love”.
cravings
Anne-Marie Desmeules
The Quartermaster
136 pages