Why | The not boring film of the life of Patrice Desbiens

“[At] the parish hall / the film of my life is shown / on a dirty and / crumpled white sheet but / there are lengths and / I knock nails and / fall asleep,” writes Patrice Desbiens, 75. , in Fa que, his new collection. True to form, Patrice Desbiens tells beautiful lies in his poems: there would be a whole film, not boring, to draw from his life.

How did he start writing? “With a pencil,” he replies tit for tat. Smirk. Outside, a little chilly rain is falling, but inside his 2 ½ on rue Saint-Denis, although the curtains are drawn, a real warmth reigns, emanating both from our host and from all this poetry that the books that cover the wall. On the floor, at our feet, the old Olivetti on which he typed L’homme invisible/The invisible man (1981), one of his most important books.

Naturally not very talkative, legendaryly allergic to the inquisitive ritual of the interview, Patrice Desbiens was almost talkative that day, at least by his own standards.

“I was so cold, lying under the overpasses. Since then, as soon as there is the slightest fret, I start to shiver,” he explains when his guest asks about those cut-off gloves he wears inside, just like his cap decorated with the Franco-Ontarian flag.

Lying under the overpasses? It is that Patrice Desbiens traveled a lot, in his youth, following the death of his mother. What year was that? He wasn’t old, that’s for sure. Teen. His traveling salesman father died when he was 4 years old in a North Bay hotel room. The heart, probably.

Remember roughly? The Franco-Ontarian will make this exercise the heart of his work. If his books have been celebrated for their look at the proverbial daily life, his poetry is less one of observation of what is around him than of auscultation of his memories, which he densifies with the help of images. just slanted enough to give many tiny nothings a lot of magic. Or to restore to great feelings like love their banal humanity.

“[In] my room under the bed / I kept a little piece of the / little stream where I / met her,” he wrote in “A Rustle of Stars”, one of the most beautiful pages of Fa that. “[S]ometimes I take out the little stream and / I place it carefully on the / floor to listen to it flow”.

What is a good poem? “It is a poem that you understand what is said. You have to see the image, it grabs you,” thinks the author of Sudbury and Big Red Guitar. “I try to keep it simple. The simpler it is, the more it comes to me. Sometimes I read cases and I wonder if it was not written by an artificial intelligence. »

Patrice Desbiens seems surprisingly serene or, in any case, less gruff than usual, although, on the health side, “there is always something”. He hasn’t had a drink since 2013 – “not even a liqueur candy” – but had never taken it easy before. “It may be my last book,” he says. I’m tired. Writing a poem, after all, involves “starting from scratch” every time. Does he think about death? “No, but I’m sure she, she’s thinking of me.” »

How did Patrice Desbiens become a poet? The real answer will come without the reporter having to ask the question. It was in June, at the time of the end of year exams at the English secondary school where he was going, even if he did not go there often.

“I answered what I could, not much, because I hadn’t studied. All I did then was walk around and read. I asked to go to the bathroom, went home to the family where I was staying, packed myself a bag of essentials and hurried from Timmins to Toronto. »

“My life hasn’t been as romantic as you think,” he hastens to add. But all kinds of things have happened to me. And nothing worse has ever happened to me than getting caught in a school gymnasium in June when the weather is nice. I have been on the streets, but I have always been free. »