For As Far as the Eye Can See

In a world where text is “as fluid as the rain we see running in the streets,” and the printed word “a monument as fragile as the grass,” what is the place of poetry? Impressionistic, seasonal, inspired by the Pléiade and the poets of present-day Québec, this calendar of 144 “light sonnets” is a measured meditation on art and mutability.

AUTHOR

Judith Cowan

Judith Cowan was born in Nova Scotia, but grew up in Toronto. She graduated from the University of Toronto with a B.A. in Modern Languages and Literatures. She received an M. A. in French literature from the University of Toronto, followed by an M. A. in English literature from York University. She received a Ph. D. in Canadian Comparative Literature from L’Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, and went on to teach literature in English at L’Université du Québec à Trois-Rivères until the end of the twentieth century.Her stories have appeared in a number of literary magazines, including Quarry Magazine, Queen’s Quarterly, The Malahat Review, The Fiddlehead, and The Antigonish Review. In French translation, they have also been published in Liberté, XYZ : la revue de la nouvelle, and L’Atelier du Roman (Paris). She was one of the original contributors to Ellipse magazine, where she has published English translations of individual poems by many Québec poets. She is the only English-language writer in Trois-Rivières, Québec.

AUTHOR

Robert Melançon

Robert Melançon is one of Quebec’s most original poets. He won the Governor General’s Award for Poetry for his collection Blind Painting and shared the Governor General’s Award for Translation with Charlotte Melançon for their French version of A.M. Klein’s The Second Scroll. A long-time translator of Canadian poet Earle Birney, Melançon has been the poetry columnist for the Montreal newspaper Le Devoir and the Radio-Canada program En Toutes Lettres. He lives in North Hatley, in Quebec’s Eastern Townships.