Signals for Seers
$26.95
Signals for Seers is the first book-length selection in English of the poetry of Gilles Hénault. The title comes from Signaux pour les voyants; poems 1941-1962 but this collection spans forty years, giving a sampling of early and late work, including the famous long poem Semaphore (1962), and eight translations from À l’inconnue nue, a suite published in 1984. This is a fine introduction to one of the most engaged and innovative poets among the crucial generation which emerged in Quebec after the Second World War.
Translated by Ray Ellenwood.
Poetry 1988 • 6 x 9 inches • 63 pages • 9780920428641
Rare – less than 20 copies
“Here is a poet who is demanding, and therefore modest, lucid and therefore ironic, a poet who is inward-looking and therefore thunder-struck.” —Jacques Brault
Gilles Hénault (1920-1996) was associated with Paul-Emile Borduas, Jean-Paul Riopelle, and the other young Quebec artists who signed the famous Refus Global manifesto on August 9, 1948. Though Hénault did not sign the anti-establishment document, he shared the condemnation directed at its writers by the powers-that be, and decades later watched as Refus Global was hailed as the invention of modern Quebec culture. Ironically, Hénault became for five years the director of the Musée d’art contemporain. He was poet, art critic, broadcaster, newspaperman and professor. His major work, Semaphore, won the Prix du Grand Jury des Lettres in 1962.
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