Yves Préfontaine

Yves Préfontaine, anthropologist, poet, writer, broadcaster and presenter (born 1 February 1937 in Montreal, QC; died 31 March 2019 in Montreal). He is known as a great supporter of French language, literature, the arts, music and anthropology.

Childhood

Yves Préfontaine is the son of biologist and physician Dr. Georges Préfontaine (1897–1986). Georges worked to institutionalize and promote scientific activity, along with his friend and teacher Frère Marie-Victorin who was the author of the great literary and scientific book La flore laurentienne (1935). Marie-Victorin nicknamed Georges “l'éternel semeur” (translation: the eternal sower) due to his efforts to promote scientific advancement. The Université de Montréal created the Musée d'histoire naturelle Georges Préfontaine (1987–1994) in his honour. In a 2006 interview, Yves confided that it was his father, a humanistic scientist, to whom he owed his love of the right words, because: “Nothing was beyond his naming of things and beings: beasts, plants, trees, stones, even mosses and lichens, which he named by their Latin and common names. This was the first way I learned not only to read, but also to'write', to name the natural world correctly and in a distinct way.” Georges Préfontaine also introduced him to the splendors of the celestial sphere.

Yves Préfontaine is the brother of musician Jean Préfontaine and actor Claude Préfontaine. Yves spent last 35 years with political commentator Louise-Esther Fortin.

Education

After studying classics at Collège Stanislas, Yves Préfontaine enrolled in anthropology at the Université de Montréal and completed both a bachelor’s degree (1964) and a master’s degree (1969). During his studies, he did research for the National Film Board of Canada (1961, 1964–1965).

With a scholarship from the Quebec Ministry of Education, Préfontaine studied Sociology of Culture at the l'École pratique des Hautes Études de la Sorbonne in Paris for four years, graduating with a doctorate in 1970. While in France, he hosted cultural programs for the Office de radiodiffusion-télévision française (ORTF).

Career

From 1970 to 1971 he taught at McGill University. He had barely had time to prepare his courses when the October Crisis erupted. That year, however, he published: Débâcle and À l'orée des travaux (1970), collections that were released in bookshops, but not marketed, due to the circumstances. He then worked for the Quebec Ministry of Communications (1971–1972) and Radio-Québec (1974).

He taught at the Université du Québec à Montréal in 1974 and 1975. In 1977 he became an advisor to the Quebec Ministry of Education for the Parti Québécois. From 1978 to 1980, he was director of the office of psychiatrist Camille Laurin, Minister of Cultural Development and creator of Bill 101 to make French the official language of the Province of Quebec (see Quebec). In 1980, Préfontaine was a member of the Executive Council of the Government of Quebec and held various positions in Public Affairs at Radio-Canada. Convinced that Quebec must be sovereign to avoid louisianisation (a term he coined), he was a member of the Parti Québécois. (See also French-speaking Louisiana and Canada.)

Préfontaine was a prolific poet and writer. He has countless publications: poems, stories, articles, book chapters and translations in various newspapers, journals, books and publishing houses. He has also produced musical adaptions, sound recordings on records, cassettes and CDs, radio productions, cultural series and literary programs broadcast by Radio-Canada. His poetry has been translated into English, Spanish, Hungarian, Italian, Romanian and Croatian.

Notable Works

Les temples effondrés (1957)
Boréal (1957)
Adresse à Edgard Varèse, in Visages d’Edgard Varèse, Fernand Ouellette, dir. (1959): 39–40
L'antre du poème (1960); republication (2022)
Pays sans parole (1967)
Le grainier (1967)
Débâcle, followed by À l'orée des travaux (1970)
Nuaison – poèmes, 1964–1970 (1981)
Le Désert maintenant (English title: This Desert Now) (1987)
Les Chemins perdus quelque part se confondent (1987)
Émergences du silence - anthologie de la poésie actuelle et vivante, Yves Préfontaine et al. (1989)
Parole tenue - poèmes, 1954–1985 (1990)
Être, aimer, tuer (2001)
Les mots tremblent (2008)
Terres d’alerte – poèmes choisis, 1954–2008 (2009)