Unfinished Dreams: Contemporary Poetry of Acadie

Description

172 pages
Contains Index
$16.95
ISBN 0-86492-132-2
DDC C841'.5408.09715

Year

1990

Contributor

Edited by Edited and translated by Fred Cogswell and Jo-Anne Elder

Marguerite Andersen is a professor of French studies at the University
of Guelph.

Review

The golden lettering on this book’s cover sends its message:
Unfinished Dreams brings unknown treasures to the surface, helps them
emerge. The reader opens the book with eager anticipation. He or she
will not be disappointed.

Cogswell, a poet and founder of Fiddlehead Poetry Books, and Elder, a
writer and translator, here anthologize the most contemporary work by 30
Acadian poets. Their careful and sensitive translations show anglophones
that Acadian literature is alive and well.

Raoul Boudreau’s well-written and thoroughly researched and
documented introduction analyzes the history of Acadian
literature—which, until 1950, was strictly religious, patriotic, and
conformist. The “Acadian Renaissance,” begun in 1958 with Ronald
Després, celebrates the growing energy of Acadia when he writes, in
“Poetry Night in Acadie,” that it became “suddenly / A land
consumed / By a long held-in fire / Of singing guitars / Heart-licking
poems / And crowded elbows in the dreams / half-light.”

By 1970, there was a group of poets, encouraged probably by such events
as the election of Louis Robichaud as premier, the founding of the
Université de Moncton, and the fact that Antonine Maillet’s La
Sagouine was being acclaimed throughout the world. Raymond LeBlanc, Guy
Arsenault, and Herménégilde Chiasson wrote poetry that moved toward
liberation and self-affirmation and that reappropriated Acadian culture,
expressing rage about the denigration of a country as well as love for
it. Today, Acadian writing is, according to Boudreau and as evidenced by
the selections, modern or even postmodern, often inspired by feminism
and experimental writing practices.

Cogswell and Elder present the poets in alphabetical order, probably to
avoid giving any one of them a place of particular importance. While I
appreciate this democratic procedure, I might have more clearly
understood the evolution of Acadian poetry had the editors opted for
chronological order.

We speak of Acadie as of an imaginary country. Unfinished Dreams
reflects a complex and distinct society, distinct from Québec as well
as from anglophone society and, in fact, quite real. Was it ever
imaginary only? If so, we must believe, with Maurice Raymond (in
“Simply To Believe”) “that a poem / is a foundation.” It is
obvious that Acadian literature has inspired and assisted the rebirth of
a people.

Citation

“Unfinished Dreams: Contemporary Poetry of Acadie,” Canadian Book Review Annual Online, accessed July 13, 2025, https://cbra.library.utoronto.ca/items/show/11388.