Mirabel

Ronald Charles Epstein is a Toronto-based freelance writer and published poet.

Pierre Nepveu is one of the most familiar Québécois literary figures,
at least among English-speaking Canadians. Although his 1997 novel,
Still Lives, has been translated, he is best known—and honoured—as a
poet. Two of his three Governor General’s Awards were for verse
collections, including Lignes Aeriennes (2003), this book’s original
version.

Although Mirabel International Airport was downgraded to a charter
terminal in 1997 and finally shut down in 2002, many readers still
remember that sparsely used facility as an international gateway to
Canada. The author views Mirabel as the creation of an ambitious federal
government that expropriated vast tracts of farmland in order to build
the airport and surrounding regional centre. Since the terminal failed
and the other institutions never materialized, he condemns it as “a
preposterous monument to bureaucratic and governmental incompetence.”

Since the poet’s family lived in that region, this is a very personal
work. He celebrates his land in “Homage” by affirming that “we
live upon it and have been granted / all the seasons needed to exist.”
Its loss is mourned with symbolic images that recall “the auction / of
tools and the remains of lives.”

Those who actually used Mirabel may have noticed that it was a white
elephant. Nepveu’s poetry and closing author’s note reveal that
beast’s true nature.