Early Reviewers

Nelligan’s finest 46 poems carefully translated from the original French into English with detailed commentary. Appendix with the original French.

Émile Nelligan, Canada's first truly modern poet, burst upon the scene as a prodigy creating brilliant lyrical poetry in late 19th-century Montréal for three years before suffering, at age 19, a breakdown that left him in a mental asylum for the rest of his life. Nelligan went on to achieve mythic status in Québec - no other poet in all Canada has been the subject of so many biographies, films, novels, plays, and critical appraisals. This volume includes Nelligan's key poems, accompanied by robust commentary covering such topics as the women in Nelligan's life, the nature of his breakdown, and the several controversies surrounding his life and work. This collection of 46 poems, translated from French, has been selected for both poetic and psychological interest.

"In the valley breeze where the moonlight glows

Come all ye blonde belles and brown-haired beaus,

Where the fiddle plays and the woodwind blows,

Dance the villanelle!"

- Villanelle Violin

"A mighty Ship there was, of solid gold 'twas spun,

Its masts touched the sky, it sailed on seas unknown,

While naked Aphrodite, tresses wildly blown,

Reclined along the prow before the blazing sun.

- The Ship of Gold

Ian Allaby is a Toronto-based writer, poet and former editor of the Spadina Literary Review.