Poetry
This week: The Iconic Anne Hebert! Edited by: eyestar~* More Newsletters By This Editor
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{font:verdana Hi everyone! I am happy to be your guest editor for this edition. I was wandering through birthdays of wonderful poets and found, along with Longfellow and , the French Canadian author and poet, Anne Hebert showed up! It took me back to my school days and my French Canadian heritage.
So let’s have a look at one of Quebec’s national treasures.
“That’s what it means to be out of your mind. To let yourself be carried away by a dream. To give it room, let it grow wild and thick, until it overruns you.”
― Anne Hébert, Kamouraska
"I believe in solitude broken like bread by poetry". -Anne Hebert
"Poetry cannot be explained, it must be lived". -Anne Hebert
"The fact that I write is a sign that I am alive, because if one is truly desperate, one does not do anything at all, There have been moments when I have been discouraged, but I never stopped writing." ~Anne Hebert
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Anne Hebert was born in Saine-Catherine-de-Fossambault on August 1, 1916 and learned to write at an early age under the influence of her father Maurice-Lang Hebert, a civil servant and literary citric of the time. She spent some time in her youth in hospital dealing with pleurisy, scarlet fever and appendicitis.
She was also a descendent of 19th c. historian Francois-Xavier Garneau on her mother’s side and and cousin to Hector de Saint-Denys Garneau, a poetic icon in Quebec. His death in 1943, as well as her sister Marie's death in 1952 shaped her vision, full of open revolt, images of death and drowning.
Here is an excerpt translation of part of her “Une Petite morte”
“Une petite morte
s'est couchee en travers de la porte
Nous l'avons trouvee au matin,
abattue sur notre seuil
Comme un arbre de fougere plein de gel.
Nous n'osons plus sortir depuis qu'elle est la
C'est une enfant blanche dans ses jupes mousseuses
D'ou rayonne une etrange nuit laiteuse. “
(Poemes, p. 47)
Gladys Downes' version m which matches Anne’s rhythm and Imagery.
“ A little dead girl
is lying across our doorstep
We found her in the morning, curled on the sill
Like bracken touched by frost.
Now that she is there
We do not dare go out
This pale child in her frothy skirts, shedding
A strange milky darkness. “
(The Poetry of French Canada, p. 40)”
In 1942, She won le prix David for her first collection of poems, Les songes en equlilibres but had to publish her second , Le torrent at her own expense in 1950 as she could not find a Quebec publisher for her work, which was considered provocative and shocking at the time to the repressive Quebec Society.
Anne lived and worked in Quebec City until her mid 30’s. From 1950-54, she worked on Radio Canada and wrote scripts for the National Film Board. She then moved to Paris on a Royal Society of Canada grant, to find a more receptive audience for her work. She lived there for 30 years though visited Quebec often and most of her works were set in Quebec.
In 1953 her Les tombeau de rois was published took Paris by surprise with its "coldblooded look at the human psyche" (1). Her first novel Les chambres de bois in 1958. She was one of the first Quebecois writers to experiment expressing rebellion and alienation rather than realistic narration. In 1960 during the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, she wrote mystere de la parole poems with more down to earth themes. In 1970 her most famed novel “Kamouraska” won France’s Prix de Libraries and was even made into a movie.
In her life time she published over 25 works of poetry, prose and theatre in more than 50 years. In 1997 she moved back to Quebec and died at age 83 of bone cancer in 2000. She is known for her vivid imagination and artistry, intensity and her writing could reflect violence and rebellion against conformism. She often showed the theme of a character's past inhibiting freedom. Her last novel was published in 1999, a year before her death. What longevity!
In her career, she was made a Companion of the Order of Canada, a member of Royal Society of Canada and a three time winner of the Governor General’s Award. Her works have been translated into 7 languages. It is cool, that, in 2003, she was one of two French Canadian poets to be featured on a Stamp to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the National Library of Canada. The stamps were part of a series , “The Writers of Canada”. She would have been proud to know that her cousin Garneau was the other poet chosen!
Anne Hebert never married but left behind an influencial body of literature, models for other writers and works that has been analyzed by many in Quebec, France and English Canada.
I am proud to be Canadian! She really caught the struggle of French Canada.
Thanks for reading!
Who is one of your national poet treasures?
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/anne-hebert/
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/anne-hebert/
http://articles.latimes.com/2000/jan/26/news/mn-57891
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Thanks for responding to my last newsletter! "Poetry Newsletter (June 27, 2018)"
Wow! Being Diane I love these!
My attempts. It is winter which inspires my poetry.
1-Creating footprints
The snow observes pure and white
While the moon reflects
2-Birds in the winter chase
Morsels hidden in earth’s seam
Bending the dead stems
3-The winter Moon shines
Gazing on the earth below
Revealing night’s hope
4-Divulging blood shines
In winters snow white coldness
Scaring pure souls
5-Crows add cold guffaw
Freezing humans depressed
Beg for soul’s heat
6-God gives us the sun
Empowering strength freely
Unseen in winter
7-Walk on crunching ground
Feeling the brim earth’s crust dead
Pending magic spring"
Thanks Uncommonspirit I enjoy your scifi ku!
"What a lovely article. Being a writer of scifaiku, I enjoyed reading about another woman writer of haiku. :) Her poems are beautiful. I will have to learn more about this poet."
You are welcome Tinker . You rock.
"Thanks for reading! "nature and everyday task"
Keep on following your muse everyone! Leave a legacy!
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