Description
Telephone wires, dark as a line in a schoolboy’s notebook against the dawn; paint flakes from houses drifting down like dust; the hulking shadow of a desk that emerges, stock-still as a cow, in the moment of waking. Join poet Robert Melançon for a quiet celebration of his city, its inhabitants, and the language that gives it life.
From “Eden”:
You go forth drunk on
the multitudes, drunk
on everything, while
the lampposts sprinkle
nodding streets with stars.
Praise for Montreal Before Spring
“Moving … Seldom have poems in translation so quickly won me over. Melançon addresses the reader like a trusted friend, without flattery … and free of Canadian clannishness.”—Patrick Kurp, Anecdotal Evidence
“There is a great tenderness in these poems…Melançon sees the big and the small and treats them with equal respect and curiosity….Donald McGrath’s translation is invisible, seamless.”—Michael Dennis, poet
Praise for For as Far as the Eye Can See
A Globe & Mail Best Poetry Book of the Season
By the Winner of the Governor General’s Award
“Judith Cowan’s graceful translation of Robert Melançon’s For as Far as the Eye Can See packs 144 striking and meditative sonnets into one small volume. Melançon’s work is rich and deceptively simple: “Let’s lift our faces to this October sunlight, and close our eyes; at once we’ll share/the entirely philosophical well-being of the cat/who’s stretched out in the grass.” It’s a welcome introduction to one of Quebec’s major poets.”—The Globe & Mail
“One hundred forty-four poems of acute observation: Melançon’s invention is impressive. Judith Cowan’s rendering of the poet’s work into English is adroit and fully idiomatic.”—Montreal Review of Books
“Poetry, in Melançon’s hands, is a way of seeing.” —GoodReports
