The Edges of Light: Selected Poems: 1983-1990

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

Hélиne Dorion has published a dozen books of poetry in Quebec, France,
and Belgium. The Edges of Light is a selection of her poems published
between 1981 and 1991.

For Dorion, life and love are faille, or geological fault. The human
being, in pursuing the path of his or her existence, must move across
“love, fissure, distress.” Dorion’s answer to the mortal
condition, the principle of uncertainty, the always threatening rupture:
observe the process, live each moment in full consciousness, “know how
to name the hour of a day and the wound that goes through us.”

These poems have no easy answers. The only path we know is the one that
leads nowhere. Yet the individual, in this case the poet, is sometimes
able to see what remains: a renewal of the horizon, a fragment of
memory, the cadence of music. And the poet knows what is lacking: “A
bridge that goes from desire to desire and watches tirelessly over the
abyss.”

This volume clearly presents a poet of importance who deals with
everyday concerns while exploring psychological risks, physical
environment, time, love, and memory.