Je ne lis pas les poètes, j’écoute le ciel
(Daniel Lavoie, Particulités)
As bizarre as it might seem to review a book of French language poetry in English, I will do exactly that, although it is very difficult to find an English equivalent even for the book's main tonality, la tristesse. Not quite sadness, but rather a dark tint, a beautiful melancholy. Forget everything you know about Daniel Lavoie the entertainer, with his trademark sunny smile. The narrator of Particulités is disillusioned and detached as he dissects the Universe’s mechanics, awe-inspiring and mysterious, the work of a great higher consciousness. When the narrator then descends back to Earth he observes it almost as a stranger, who despite all the vain and cruel ways of humanity, through the mundane details of everyday life senses a higher light seeking transcendence through people, nature and art (“Je sais qu’un dieu séculier cherche, à travers moi, les mots pour me dire qu’il est là” - bulletin).
