Montral Before Spring

(Paperback)

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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 Melanon 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.

Robert Melanon, former poetry columnist for Le Devoir is a recipient of the Governor General's Award, the Prix Victor-Barbeau, and the Prix Alain-Grandbois.

Reviews

Praise for Montreal Before Spring "Rich and deceptively simple... one of Quebec's major poets."--Globe & Mail "Melancon deftly links seasons, the city space and their relation to age with his effortless metaphors ... A thread of romanticism throbs beneath [his] poetry, [which] is intoxicated, fascinated with experiencing the surrounding world."--New York Daily News "There is a great tenderness in these poems...Melancon sees the big and the small and treats them with equal respect and curiosity...Donald McGrath's translation is invisible, seamless."--Michael Dennis, poet

Author Bio

Robert Melancon is one of Quebec's most revered contemporary poets and a two-time winner of the Governor General's Award. A longtime translator of Canadian poet A.M. Klein, Melancon has been the poetry columnist for Le Devoir and the Radio-Canada program En Toutes Lettres; he is also a critic and has been a professor at the University of Montreal. In addition to the Governor General's Award he is a past recipient of the Prix Victor-Barbeau and the Prix Alain-Grandbois.