Visite avec Juliette 31 juillet jusque 4 aout

Sylvia et Iolande avant la musique en Ste. Foy

Juliette and I had a lovely visit to Quebec City. 

This is a selfie Julie took of us on the bus; #11, I think.

Sylvia and Monique, chez Monique.

poème par Monique Laforce publiée en Waterways en enero et une photo prise par moi en 2009

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  Il manque  9 jours qu'il y a 8 ans depuis j'ai prise cette photo à la coin de Cartier y René Levesque.

  
  
  
  
  
  Chaque jour, je refais l’espace et le temps

  à mon rythme, à ma mesure

  je reprends une à une les histoires

  tombées telles les feuilles d’un automne

  je les remue les secoue les aligne

  comme si le monde à force de désir

  pouvait se réparer tout seul

  et m’absorber à nouveau

  au fond, je m’en doute,

  la vie prend l’éternité à se créer.

  
  

  

  Every day, I remake space and time

  to my own rhythm, my own measure

  I take up again one by one the stories

  fallen like autumn leaves

  I move them shake them line them up

  as if the world by force of desire

  could repair itself all by itself

  and take me in anew

  though really, I know better :
                                                        life takes eternity to create itself.

                                 
   [translation by Sylvia Manning]

MEMOIRE MINERALE/ STONE MEMORY

Good news which I'll say in English as I'm at a computer without a way to make French diacritic marks (or anyway I can't find them.)  Ten Penny Players has published a chapbook of a long poem by Monique Laforce in bilingual format.  The translated title is Stone Memory.  Translation to English by Sylvia Manning and Monique Laforce.

We thank Barbara Fisher and Richard Spiegel, the publishers.

Alors, sans les marques?  Un poeme longue par Monique Laforce, tradui par elle et moi ensemble, avec le titre en anglais de Stone Memory, est publiee par Ten Penny Press a New York City.  Nous les remercions a Barbara Fisher et Richard Spiegel. Better mention of this when I find a computer that speaks French.

Le Barbier

This evening writing from Seguin, Texas, on a computer without French markings that won't respond to number pad codes either, so no French, I'm afraid. But I did sit in a barber shop chair just earlier, one very like this one in the Gabrielle Roy Library on rue St. Joseph in Quebec City. As shown here, it was about to be taken away; it had been part of an installation in which the library user sat in the chair, put on some headphones, and listened to recorded stories. Here in Seguin, I have an old barber shop with, comme j'ai dit, a chair very like this one. Libraries are grand wherever they are, but none is finer than the Gabrielle Roy, a mon avis. Elle me manque.

Monique tells me that the reading at the Librarie St. Jean Baptiste on November 21 was "beautiful."

Monique lira encore une fois.

Cet annonce a le nomme de Monique Laforce et des autres qui sont invités à lire son poésie à la librarie St. Jean Baptiste vendredi, 21 novembre. Claude Antar, aussi! Je suis triste que je ne suis pas là maintenant mais déjà en Vermont.

Une photo de mon dernier jour dans le faubourg.

ALLO APRES TRES LONGTEMPS!

J'ai trouvé comment entrer! Je l'avais perdu le passemot! Et, je n'ai pas un ordinateur avec les marques francaises. Mais, je peut essayer écrire quelque chose. O, j'ai perdu aussi mon camera, alors, ....
neanmois, allo!

Was not in Quebec as much as usually this past summer and autumn. Writing now from Texas, by the way. Returned here in October. Just before returning, my dear friend Loraine Janowski and I found the Lavendre Bleu (or is it Bleu Lavendre?) lavender farm near Fitchville. When I find the camera I'll post some pictures from there.

Also have lots of pictures from Chicoutimi. Have to find the camera and the character map.

I did visit Quebec City on the way to Chicoutimi. Made a road trip there with friend Philip. I've wanted to go to Chicoutimi for a long time, just for how wonderful the sound of it is.

Saw Monique Laforce, of course. Monique is a grandmother now! Yes! Her grandson Teodor was born in October.

There's much to say to catch up. It's wonderful to be back in. I'll see if this publishes and say adieu.

For now, if it's in italics it's French even if the diacritics aren't available. I don't want to write in all caps -- lettres majuscules.

Reading Balzac, Le Lys dans le Vallee. Learned from Monique that one says the final S in Lys. Otherwise, she mentions, it would sound just like lis, bed. Learned several new words just from a few paragraphs, this morning. Ici ils sont: drogman, le courardise, effaroucher, exorde, maratre, esquiver, poussif, savamment. (Tous sans les marques, perdonez-moi.)

TROIS POÈTES SONT VENUS POUR NOUS!

Michèle Blanchet (front, left), Monique Laforce (front, center) and Richard Fournier (in back on right) came from Quebec City to give three poetry readings on both sides of the Quebec/Vermont border. They came across to Vermont on Saturday, Nov. 13 after a drive down from Quebec City. This picture was taken after their second reading, at the Barton Public Library. With them is Toni Eubanks, librarian for Barton and Glover (front, right) and also yours truly, Sylvia Manning (in back, in black). They had already given a wonderful first reading at the Bread and Puppet theatre in Glover, from which we have no pictures here but some very good ones in a review in the Orleans County Chronicle of Nov. 17, 2010.




Here the three poets stand in front of Resto Millie's in Stanstead, Quebec. Their last reading, billed Brunch & Poetry, was here, just barely back across the line. This reading was filmed, so we hope to have a link to that video.

It was beautiful. Everything. The poems, the weather, the way people listened, the way they responded, the graciousness of Elka and Peter Schumann, Toni Eubanks, Bashar at Resto Millie's, Nancy Nourse with RythmeBeat. Tous. Merci beaucoup.

En Fin

Hello at last,

Here near the Quebec border in Vermont I'm not connected to the internet; I come to the little public library to use a computer. That's part of why I haven't entered much here, though I have pictures of when my dear friend Danelle came from Texas and went with me to Quebec City, and certainly I have poems and pictures from other visits made there since I came back north in late July. It's something about reality, something about grief.

But I have to mention that Monique Laforce Virgule Poète, Michèle Blanchet and Richard Fournier are coming to Barton and Glover to read their poems in French (with some English translations). They will read once at Bread and Puppet,in Glover, then at the Barton Public Library, and the next day at Resto Millie's in Stanstead.

Tout semble difficil. Il n'y a pas une fois quand tous les choses dont j'ai besoin sont ensemble, et alors je n'ecris pas beaucoup ni ici ni chez moi. Mais, ceci est important pour moi, que mes amis nous visitent, et je crois aussi pour la region, alors ... la poster au-dessous n'est pas correct, par example. Richard FOURNIER n'est pas Fourtier, et nous n'avons pas un lecture au Runaway Café, mais ...je l'ai fait en PAINT et je ne sais pas comment le changer.

ceci est quelque chose, quelque chose de poésie ... et des amis de la ville de Québec, la belle ville.

Mes amis!

Je ne sais pas pourquoi la photo est telle petite quand ici son mes grands amis: Monique Laforce, Martin, Mathieu, et Itzela Sosa. Dans la bistro.

An homage to Monique Laforce, poète de Québec

Many of Monique's friends, including several other poets (of course) will gather at 7 pm, March 23, at the Kritzhoff Bistro on rue Cartier. (C'est écrit correct, Kritzhoff? Bon, tout le monde de la rue Cartier le savent.) The poets will read their choices from Monique's many publications, and she herself will read for 10 minutes.

Ah, comme je voudrai être là.

La photo de Monique est de l'été passé, au cabine au Vermont.

Felicitation, mon ami Monique.

Vive Québec! Vive Québec libre!

Général Charles DeGaulle came to Québec in 1967 (November, I think, so just after my daughter, Leecia, was born in late October). His speech is a landmark in Québec history for his having shouted out Vive Québec! Vive Québec libre! I've walked past him hundreds of times now, because I live on an alley that is just the other side of that little red house with white porch. The one with the Québec flag.

*****
So much to learn, so little time to tell about it. On my last full day of this long stay, I'm in the Gabrielle Roy library on a nearly cold August 29. Monique Laforce has met me here. We're going to attend a workshop around the corner on Community and Free Education. Having Monique along will be great, because she can fill me in on anything I didn't understand.

Then I'll go for supper by invitation from Itzela Sosa and Martin. Itzela, from Mexico City, is translating to Spanish the first biography of Flora Tristan, by Éléonor Blanc, which I've already translated to English.



Here are Itzela and Martin. She works on a PhD in Sociology at Université Laval. Martin, from Argentina, works on a graduate degree in Engineering. Ils sont très beaux, n'est pas? Itzela is as beautiful as Flora Tristan was.

*****

On Wednesday Monique and I visited l'Ile d'Orleans, several miles north of the city. One gets there on a bridge from which you can see the water falls of Montmorency. It's one of those scenes that really deserves the word formidable. But I don't have a picture of that, because I was driving.


Here's a picture of me and Monique at a snackbar -- le Bar Laitier. Monique lived here on l'Ile d'Orleans many years ago.



We found the house where she lived, and now it's a gallery, so she was able to walk through some of the rooms she once knew. She lived only across the street while expecting that son. He is now in Afghanistan but only until he returns home to Québec on October 6.


And here's another picture of DeGaulle, because it is.

Goodbye for now, Québec, mais juste Au Revoir.

Tandis que ...

While I wait to remember to bring the right USB to the library with me, I'll post here another picture or two that I think is worth seeing, though I'd meant to put something altogether different up that I don't have with me.

My friend Monique Laforce has come with me to Bibliothèque Gabrielle Roy in the early evening, still quite hot, 88 degrees Farenheit at 7 pm -- 31.111111111(+) Celcius à 19 heures. We spent most of the day reading her poetry, translating some, eating chocolate ice cream with strawberries grown in Québec.

This morning we went to the Université Laval for her to register for something called here a Third Age Course, Études de Troisième Age, which are inexpensive serious courses in such as art and philosophy for people over 50, given by the university. Why doesn't every university do that?

Then we went to a bistro near the university to which she'd not been in years, Café au Temps Perdu. We spoke long of many things. Elle est diserte, mon amie la poète, mais dans le mieux sens du mot. (I learned this word disert(e) today from Monique, from something of hers I read about Not Funny Buffoons -- Les Bouffons Pas Drôles. Disert(e) originally meant fluent, but then began to mean talkative or gabby. Monique is fluent, communicative. Today I translated three of her poems of lyrical tone and three funny ones -- trois plus drôles. Friday night Monique read at the Tam Tam in Basse Ville.

Another dear friend, young Mathieu Lizotte [I always call him young Mathieu because he is] has returned safely from his travels in South America with his Czech girl friend (I think his girlfriend), Blanka.

Very few pictures on the USB I have with me, but I offer these: outside the Librarie Nelligan, also called Les Temps Retrouvé, and outside le librarie Page Noir.





Nelligans, by the way, is the subject of one of the photographs in an exhibition now at the university Social Science Library. It takes the center place of choice. I went to tell François, the book store owner, to go see it, the day after I saw it. But here's an elegant sight on a hot summer day: a view of Basse Ville taken from stairs going down, back in late winter -- or March 25, properly spring:

Au revoir et merci ....

Malhereusement, je pars de la belle ville, mercredi. C'est difficile le faire quand il fait si doux. On espoit à revenir bientôt.

Je remercie la ville soi-même, à tous les citoyennes, mais particulièrement à Mathieu Lizotte -- artiste, musician, écrivain, étudiant, ami, bon humain -- qui m'a aidée tellement...;

aussi je remercie Monique Laforce, poète, pour les heures de collaboration en faisant traductions de ses poèmes...;

je remercie Renée Lachance, qui m'a aidée beaucoup, avec la traduction et aussi pour connaitre la ville meillure...;

je remercie leComité Populaire de la Faubourg, Les Amis de la Terre, la Bibliothèque St. Jean Baptiste et la Bibliothèque Gabrielle Roy...;

la librarie Nelligan et Pierre qui travaille là...;

Jean-François qui m'a louyée la pièd-a-terre...;

Itzela Sosa, qui va traduire la première biographie de Flora Tristan (écrit en 1845) à l'espagnol...;

Connie Berg for two great writing sessions that were extremely helpful...;

all the bus drivers but especially the écobus drivers...;

sweet Tony who called me every night...;

c'est-à-dire: tous.

On remercie.

P.S. For about 6-8 weeks, I'll be sharing pictures and notes from my time here but won't actually be here in Québec. Plan to return for the summer festival.

If you`d like to study French in Québec, check out the FLE program at Université Laval. I think you could still register. It's a relatively inexpensive and really good program.