Looking for Henry

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

Looking for Henry is a long poem that takes the form of four monologues
addressed to “missing” Métis painter Henry Letendre. Each monologue
is accompanied by an explanatory preface, and the book itself includes
an introduction.

Doucet is not only searching for the painter whom he views as a kindred
spirit, however, he is also a searching for his own Acadian roots
through Letendre’s paintings and life. In paralleling the sad
histories of the Métis and Acadian people, he leaves the reader in no
doubt as to where his sympathies lie. He draws a nostalgic but
convincing portrait of what was and what might have been. He has a gift
for intellectual and emotive imagery: “clear-cut membrane of the
lake,” for instance; or, more bitterly, “his blood no more / than an
hors d’oeuvre.” His prose, too, has a lacerating quality, as in
“Loyal Orange Lodge, one of the most divisive and violent
organizations ever to grace the human condition.”

One can never rewrite history; but for Doucet, Canada missed an
opportunity to become a different kind of nation. As it is, “a slice
of my own soul / has gone missing.”