something like wait for me
in the braille of scars
tonight can i suggest a little punctuation
circle half-moon vertical line of astonishment
a pause that transforms
light and breath
into language and threshold of fire

Even as vowels tremble in danger and worldly destruction repeats itself on the horizon, Ardour reminds us that the silence pulsing within us is also a language of connection. In these poems, intimacy with the other is another astonishment—a pleasant gasp, a "pause that transforms light and breath into language and threshold of fire." Since her first book appeared fifty years ago, Nicole Brossard has left us breathless, expanding our notion of poetry and its possibilities.

'[Nicole Brossard] is a wholly singular writer, part of a larger movement of Quebec Women's writing, part of feminist writing,avant-garde writing, part of lesbian writing, but wholly, unequivocally, herself.' – Sina Queyras

Nicole Brossard was born in Montréal in 1943. Twice Governor General’s Award winner for her poetry, she has published more than thirty books since 1965. Many have been translated into English: Mauve Desert, The Aerial Letter, Picture Theory, Lovhers, Baroque at Dawn, The Blue Books, Installations, Museum of Bone and Water, Fluid Arguments, Notebook of Roses and Civilization and White Piano. She has co-founded and co-directed the literary magazine La Barre du Jour (1965-1975), co-directed the film Some American Feminists (1976), and co-edited the acclaimed Anthologie de la poésie des femmes au Québec (1991 and 2003).
She is an officer of the Order of Canada, chevalière of the National Order of Quebec, and a member of l’Académie des lettres du Québec. She has twice won the Trois-Rivières International Poetry Festival Grand Prix Québecor (1989 and 1999). In 1991 she was awarded le Prix Athanase-David (the highest literary recognition in Québec). Her work has been widely translated into English and Spanish and is also available in many other languages, including German, Italian, Japanese, Slovenian, Romanian, Norwegian, Catalan, and Portuguese. Two anthologies of her work in English have appeared: Selections: the poetry of Nicole Brossard (2010) and Mobility of Light (2009), with another planned for publication in 2020.
Nicole has been awarded le Prix international de la littérature francophone Benjamin Fondane, le Prix du CIÉF for International Francophone Studies, the W.O. Mitchell Prize, and the Canada Council for the Arts Molson Prize. In 2015, she was included in the dictionary Le Petit Robert des noms propres. In 2018, she was the recipient of the first Violet Prize awarded by the Blue Metropolis Festival. Mauve Desert has been presented as a multidisciplinary creation in 2018 and is slated for an opera adaptation in 2020-21.
In 2019, an anthology of her poetry in Portuguese and a translation of Mauve Desert in Catalan will be published. Her most recent book in English is an art chapbook titled A Cappella with illustrations by Mauricio Corteletti, translated by Erín Moure and Robert Majzels.

Nicole Brossard's profile page

Poet and translator Angela Carr is the author of two poetry collections, most recently The Rose Concordance (2009), and several chapbooks, including Risk Accretions. Selections from her new work in progress, Here in There, have recently appeared in New American Writing, The Lana Turner Journal of Poetry and Opinion, and Canada and Beyond: A Journal of Canadian Literary and Cultural Studies. She has published and performed her work internationally. A doctoral student in Comparative Literary and Media Studies at the University of Montreal, Angela currently divides her time between Montreal and New York City. 

Angela Carr's profile page

'[Nicole Brossard] is a wholly singular writer, part of a larger movement of Quebec Women's writing, part of feminist writing, avant-garde writing, part of lesbian writing, but wholly, unequivocally, herself.' – Sina Queyras

‘Carr’s faithfulness to the author is clear and unwavering. Her skills as translator, as well as a poet, are evident throughout the collection, and every page breathes new, ardent life into Brossard’s work.’—Vallum Magazine

Nicole Brossard is 'widely regarded as one of Canada's best poets.'

- The New Yorker