Song for a Far Quebec

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

In this collection, renowned poet and feminist philosopher Madeleine
Gagnon sings of her love for her country, Quebec, “a strange Eden”
inherited “from immortal fathers / and mothers who dream and laugh
words / and give them to us with their milk.”

Respectfully translated by Howard Scott, these poems are of a
melancholic nature. Cemeteries of roses and of silenced loves, stones
that bleed, an old earth, and silent paths through an uncharted country
are witness to Quebec’s pain. Its people create an eighth day, invent
their fates, build survival shelters. Gagnon’s quiet tone and accurate
images speak to the attentive reader of a country and a people in
danger, yet strong: “A sense lies here darkly,” but “doubt is a
sudden joy.” Throughout its history, Quebec has died “little / so as
not to die too much.” Canadians should admire this perseverance, this
quiet resolution, this endurance, these “labours of pain.”

Song for a Far Quebec won the 1991 Governor General’s Literary Award
for poetry in French. This timely English edition may contribute to a
better understanding of Quebec’s need for survival.