The House Weighs Heavy

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
author of Calling Texas.

Paulette Dubé, a Franco-Albertan, writes brilliantly about life in a
French family in a French-speaking community. She has a superbly gritty
sense of the texture of life in this ambiance where storytellers “use
the cigarette tool” for punctuating their conversations. The intense
physicality of the poems strikes the reader immediately: Dubé knows
this world intimately and conveys it with power and insight; the
insights grow out of the perceptions rather than being tacked on as
commentary. The pacing of the lines is often brilliantly staccato. Lyric
and narrative blend brilliantly. Dubé doesn’t limit herself to
reminiscences. Perhaps the strongest section of the book is “Inside
the House,” an account by a young boy of his life in a religious
institution dominated by forbidding priests. The ambivalences of
marriage are explored in a number of other poems. This is a book showing
tremendous awareness of language and an acute interest in character and
situation. The House Weighs Heavy marks the debut of a remarkably gifted
young Canadian poet.