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Poetry Canadian

Tell Me What Moves You

by (author) Phillippe Haeck

translated by Antonio D'Alfonso

Publisher
Guernica Editions
Initial publish date
Oct 2020
Category
Canadian
  • Paperback / softback

    ISBN
    9781771835220
    Publish Date
    Oct 2020
    List Price
    $20.00

Classroom Resources

Where to buy it

Description

Haeck's intensity is such that he needs to use the fragment to complete an on-going project of finding his way to luminosity. Behind a deliberate modesty, the output is voluminous. Never boastful, Haeck introduces his prose as notes, poem-essay, poem, life-poem, life-novel, as if what he wrote did not merit adjectives such ‘completed' or ‘final'. He has invented a genre that was missing in Canada. The verse has prolonged itself into a regular paragraph. Fiction reads like a telecast, and reality made to look like conscientious invention. The writer is not an outsider; he is one of the many who just happens to jot down notes to try to come up with some sort of understanding. He is writing, and the reader looks at the writer writing. This participatory element in this literary project is translucent and incandescent.

About the authors

Phillippe Haeck's profile page

Antonio D'Alfonso was born in Montreal. He studied at Loyola College from 1970 to 1975, where he got his B.A. in Communication Arts. Later on he went to Université de Montréal to complete his Master's Science Degree in Communication Studies, specializing in Semiology; his thesis was on Mouchette, a film by Robert Bresson. In 1978 he founded Guernica Editions, where he edited over 450 books by authors from around the world. In 1982 along with three other writers, he founds the trilingual magazine, Vice Versa. In 1986, along with three other writers, he founded the Association of Italian-Canadian writers. He has taught at Université of Montréal, Continuing Studies at University of Toronto, University of Californa, in San Diego. He is presently a writer in residence at McGill University (French language and literature department).

Antonio D'Alfonso's profile page

Editorial Reviews

Written entirely in the second person—the pronoun you—and in the present tense, Philippe Haeck’s book offers a cathartic experience to readers drawn deeper and deeper as they flip from one page to another. The chapters, numbered, succinct, and fragmentary, can be read in any order. From his very first publications, Haeck has offered us a remarkable ars poetica. Tell Me What Moves You is no exception: these notes are dedicated to the act of writing, as he humbly reminds us.

 

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