Paul-Marie Lapointe

Lapointe, Paul-Marie

Paul-Marie Lapointe, writer, journalist (b at St-Félicien, Qué 22 Sept 1929). His unique synthesis of a surrealist heritage and a profoundly North American outlook, along with the richly imaginative nature of his writing, make him one of Québec's greatest poets and among those with the widest influence and audience. After studies in Chicoutimi and at the École des beaux-arts in Montréal, he published Le Vierge incendié (1948), a piercing and violently surrealistic collection, just when Paul-Émile BORDUAS and his friends put out their REFUS GLOBAL manifesto. He then was silent for 12 years while pursuing a career in journalism. He was with L'Événement Journal 1950-54, La Presse 1954-60, was information officer with the short-lived Nouveau Journal 1963, and then was editor in chief of Le Magazine Maclean 1963-68, before joining Radio-Canada where he became programming director for radio.

Lapointe published Choix de poèmes: Arbres (1960) and Pour les âmes (1964), which were republished in 1971 along with Le Vierge incendié in his retrospective Le Réel absolu (Governor General's Award). His poetry was relatively unaffected by the 1960s nationalism, but is imbued with rebellion and sensuality, is close to nature, and is shot through with a keen awareness of Western history. His works have been translated for various anthologies and foreign magazines and in 1976 he won the prize of the International Poetry Forum in the US. Other collections, including Tableaux de l'amoureuse (1974) and Écritures (1980), have joined this exclusively poetic body of work.