Keep It All

Edward L. Edmonds is a professor of education at the University of
Prince Edward Island and honorary chief of the Mi’kmaq of Prince
Edward Island.

Originally published in French in 1987 as Gardez tout, Keep It All is an
interesting bilingual edition. No one language can ever capture
another’s “breath and finer spirit,” but Judith Cowan’s
presentation of parallel texts comes close. In this well-designed
version, not everyone will subscribe either to Boisvert’s inimitable
style of delivery or to his views (“quot homines, tot
sententiae”—as many views as there are people), but all must admire
his freewheeling attitude to life, his sprinkling of statements near to
aphorisms (“On a tous droit au travail”—“We all have the right
to work”; “Mais la poesie c’est un peu la libert ”—“Poetry
is a sort of free-for-all”). In sum, Véhicule Press is to be
congratulated for presenting the anglophone reader with this fine work
by the witty, iconoclastic cult figure from Quebec.