Biblioasis International Translation #10: For as Far as the Eye Can See

Robert Melançon is one of Québecs most revered contemporary poets and a two-time winner of the Governor Generals Award. A longtime translator of Canadian poet A.M. Klein, Melançon 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.

Robert Melançon is one of Québecs most revered contemporary poets and a two-time winner of the Governor Generals Award. A longtime translator of Canadian poet Earle Birney, Melançon has been the poetry columnist for Le Devoir and the Radio-Canada program En Toutes Lettres.

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. Beautifully translated from the French by Judith Cowan.

Robert Melançon is a poet, critic, and author of Blind Painting I, for which he won the Governor General's Award. He is the recipient of the Prix Victor-Barbeaux and the Prix Alain-Grandbois.

Judith Cowan was born in Nova Scotia, but grew up in Toronto. She received a Ph. D. in Canadian Comparative Literature from LUniversité de Sherbrooke, Québec, and went on to teach literature in English at LUniversité 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, Queens 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 LAtelier 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.