Narrative and highly original poetry, even theatrical with well-identified characters, that Marie St-Hilaire-Tremblay offers us with her second collection. The first, noctilucus, was already exploring animal life. The poet is interested this time in even smaller things: the columbine, a flower with pretty colors, capable of surviving the thousands of insects that devour all its leaves.
Posted at 12:00 p.m.
Collection on filiation, from sister to mother to daughter and granddaughter, it celebrates, in an organic way, the presence of both the living and the dead beyond mourning and beyond what would seem logical or even rational.
While the mother drowns in the pain of the loss of her youngest daughter, the big sister continues to take care of the garden by deserting the vice of affliction. She “measures the nitrogen and seals the ugly pores”, even if “the living leaks out” and death interferes everywhere: “I chew my gum and spray myself with arsenic”.
A temporizing effect, introduced by the character of a boy in love with the big sister, mixes the cards. But doubts and guilt immediately arise. How not to betray the dead sister by fussing with the almighty life. Then, revelation: “I choose / the porous hatchery / and lived happily”.
The fragmented writing of the poet weaves the gnawed leaves with the stems and the corollas without losing the narrative thread. Thus, the dead wear wings and begin to ovulate. They slip into the mind of the newborn, child of love. Memory is saved thanks to this little girl who “sows oxygen by instinct”.
columbine
Marie St-Hilaire-Tremblay
red herbs
96 pages