Description
Book SynopsisTelephone 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 Melancon 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 Melancon, former poetry columnist for Le Devoir is a recipient of the Governor General's Award, the Prix Victor-Barbeau, and the Prix Alain-Grandbois.
Trade ReviewPraise 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
