Susanna Lang Reads from My Forests by Hélène Dorion

Part of the eight-part Third Coast Translators Collective Series, curated for Jill! by Susanna Lang

About the Reading:

These poems are from Hélène Dorion's most recent collection, Mes forêts (My Forests), published in October 2021 by Éditions Bruno Doucey. Dorion began to write these poems several years earlier, wanting to delve into the forest that surrounded her. In 2020, kept at home during the pandemic, she recognized that the trees’ immobility was taking root in us all. The poems are hymns of praise to the forest but also warnings of its fragility, which mirrors our collective fragility. As the poet commented in La Tribune at the end of 2021, “We see it in our societies, there is so much tension, illness and distress. I believe that poetry has something to say to us in this very intimate and deep place that is open to disruption…We are living these disruptions almost one after another. The relationship with ourselves may be the first bond to repair.”

About the Translator & Author:

Susanna Lang’s translations of poetry by Yves Bonnefoy include Words in Stone (University of Massachusetts Press, 1976) and Baalbek by Nohad Salameh (L'Atelier du Grand Tétras, October 2021). Her translations of these and other French poets are published or forthcoming in Delos, New Poetry in Translation, The Literary Review, Transference, Another Chicago Magazine, Columbia Journal and Ezra. Her third full-length collection of original poems, Travel Notes from the River Styx, was published by Terrapin Books in 2017. Among Other Stones: Conversations with Yves Bonnefoy, an e-chapbook of original poems and translations, was published by Mudlark in summer 2021. More information available at www.susannalang.com.

Hélène Dorion was born in Québec in 1958. Her first poems appeared in 1981, and since then she has published more than twenty books of poetry and fifteen artists’ books, in addition to works of fiction and memoir and a book-length essay on art and creation. She has written for young people as well as for adults. She has taught literature and creative writing, edited literary journals and anthologies, and directed audio recordings of poetry and music. In 2006, Éditions de l’Hexagone published a retrospective of her poetry titled Mondes fragiles, choses frêles (Fragile Worlds, Frail Things). That same year, she was elected to the Académie des lettres du Québec and named Chevalière de l’ordre national du Québec. Her work has earned many other honors and awards, including the Governor General of Canada, the Prix Alain-Grandbois, Aliénor Prize, the European Prix Senghor, and the Prix du Festival International de Poésie de Romania. Dorion was the first Quebecer to receive the Mallarmé Prize in 2005 and the Prix Charles-Vildrac in 2008.

Library and Archives Canada has acquired her archives, but she has a reach well beyond her home country, as she has been translated and published in fifteen countries. As a multidisciplinary artist, she has regularly shown her photography and collaborated with musicians and singers. In 2022, the Opéra de Montréal and the Opéra de Québec will present an opera that Dorion wrote with her close friend, Marie-Claire Blais, who died in 2021. Yourcenar – Une île de passions focuses on the world of Marguerite Yourcenar, author of Mémoires d’Hadrian (The Memoirs of Hadrian) and many other works.