“Miracles only exist for those who believe in them,” writes Jean-Paul Daoust in Les Miroirs de l’ombre. Despite the many reasons for despair that life has provided him with in recent years, the poet persists in believing it.
Jean-Paul Daoust, dressed with a flamboyance that would have won the admiration of Louis Being still in this world represents more than ever a sufficient opportunity to toast.
If he spends the majority of his time in his peaceful countryside of Sainte-Mélanie, the dandy has in reality never lived anywhere other than in the land of melancholy, we understand by reading The Mirrors of the Shadow, his most recent book, probably one of his last, he warns.
In fact, it has always been hidden somewhere deep within this recognizable voice, today a little dulled by a few painful episodes of illness.
The one that always lies somewhere deep in this recognizable voice, although today a little dulled by some painful episodes of illness.
Our host gets up, goes to the kitchen, brings back the bottle of sparkling wine and a bundle of leaves. In bold, at the top of the first page, a quote from Danièle Sallenave: “Coming from melancholy, literature is its accomplishment and completion. It is through melancholy that we enter literature. It is through literature that we escape from melancholy. »
“For me, melancholy is positive,” explains Jean-Paul. “I often say it’s a sadness that rests. Melancholy has nothing to do with nostalgia, which is a closed, sterile feeling. But I think as we get older, we become more and more melancholy. »
Populated by the ghosts of his rich past, The Mirrors of the Shadow is a collection both perfectly in tune with the rest of his work where delicious formulas abound – no one other than Jean-Paul sings so well “l ‘audacity to ruin oneself with elegance’ – but over which the shadow of death floats.
In these prose texts as well packed as his famous rum
At the end of 2021, Jean-Paul Daoust almost passed, following complications caused by an operation on his left lung, where he was found to have cancer. Events which “brutally” forced him to look his finitude in the eyes. At 77, no glass is strong enough to obliterate his awareness that “everything can end in such an absurd way.”
“The infinite possibilities of pain. Especially those of the soul,” he writes.
But Jean-Paul Daoust continues to believe in miracles, if only because life has often offered him proof that despite its cruelty, it is also a celebration. For almost 39 years now, the writer has shared his daily life with Mario, seemingly the nicest man in the whole world.
Other little miracles? He remembers it all: receiving a postcard from Allen Ginsberg from Venice, after having left him in New York a copy of one of his books translated into English. Singing Whose little heart is after nine? with Anne Hébert and Andrée Lachapelle during a party at Anne-Marie Alonzo. Participating for eleven years in Marie-Louise Arsenault’s radio cabarets, a platform for which he is still in mourning.
Isn’t it another magnificent miracle that, from his little poems published in the magazine of his college in Valleyfield, several founding books of Quebec queer literature emerged? A work whose bias towards a language which dazzles will have converted several neophytes to poetry.
“Dressing words is like waltzing with wild animals,” writes the man who, after recounting in Blue Ashes (1990) the abuse he experienced as a child, crossed the desert of a long depression on his knees.
“Writing takes us to places we never thought we would go, dangerous places where you are alone with your demons,” notes Jean-Paul. But writing also makes me more alive. I have the impression, when I write, that I live more, that I understand more what is happening to me. I really like the image of Adam in the earthly paradise who names things. As he names them, they become his. Writing allows me to make sense of everything that doesn’t have meaning. »
