It’s a story that she tells a bit as a joke today, despite the seriousness that this mishap could have taken. As suggested by this photo of a half-frozen river arm, offered in the first pages of the work, the author saw one of her friends pass through the ice, a few years ago, in Sainte-Marie. Rose-du-Nord. Then she pulled him out of the hole herself.
“No questions asked. Without thinking that maybe I was going to put it on too, or that the ice was going to give way, I just took it out and off we went. It was one of the events that allowed me to create a whole with what I had already collected in terms of writing. I wrote this book because I finally came out of that day alive,” shares Mylène Bouchard in an interview with The Daily.
The image is omnipresent, in fact, in the book recently published by the original Jeannoise at Mémoire d’encrier. “The ice hole, the black hole, the stars, the sky, the sea, all that.”
It seemed to fit perfectly, to advance in this immense territory that she coveted. To put words to these dazzling loves, and these even greater renunciations. Which we risk each time with better knowledge of the facts. But we still risk it, despite the ice cracking under our feet.
In fact, Mylène Bouchard will tell you, if the Opposite shifts, published in 2019 – also by Mémoire d’encrier -, was the “book of illusion”, this second work of poetry is that of “disillusion”. But we should not believe that there is no more light or hope in the poet’s complex sky. Quite the contrary.
Mylène Bouchard says her poetry always close to the heart, without too much “make-up”. (Tom Core/The Daily)
“I speak of disillusionment because there has been a great loss since then. It’s a disillusionment that actually leads us to a certain maturity that I find very beautiful today. Like a necessary part of life. Leave our childhood illusions behind. Welcoming things as they present themselves rather than dreaming of how I would like them to be,” the author philosophizes.
As she often does in her books, Mylène Bouchard procrastinates in this one. Between the possible and the impossible. The dream and the reality. Love and death. And it is precisely this movement that brings the stars closer together, as the title of his work suggests.
“There is a movement of proximity, we are getting closer to something. But there is something irreversible at the same time. We’re moving forward, we don’t really know where. There is all this movement that I illustrated with the power of the stars, of the elements. There is a certain sadness in there, a certain observation, but at the same time hope, something else that may be possible moving forward,” she adds.
There were many people on Thursday evening at the Librairie Marie-Laura for the Saguenay launch. (Tom Core/The Daily)
It took him almost five years to put these thoughts down on paper. Because to be honest, his intentions to do it again with a second book of poetry were not so clear. No more, at least, than the first time. “The first one was quite accidental. In the sense that I am a fiction writer, although in my novels there was always poetic prose. Opposite shiftsit was like it came out of me, and I let it happen.”
Then through other short texts and notes in her notebooks, Mylène Bouchard let the rest happen. Which would allow him to once again approach the idea of the link. But this time with herself, through writing.
This is the reason for this “epistolary poetry” and these letters, posted here and there in the pages of The stars have come closer. They are addressed to an unknown friend, to an amalgam of several figures, but also “echo what is felt at the moment”.
What is felt, moreover, is always shared with a certain simplicity, and without too much makeup, at the end of one’s pen. This is what the co-founder and literary director of La Peuplade has always aspired to, she who says she adores the “poetry of the heart” of Joséphine Bacon, for example. “That’s what speaks to me the most. I truly write poetry from my heart. I’m not racking my brains. For me, the star was a very accessible image.”
For the rest, Mylène Bouchard, to whom we also owe The bachelor pad, By God, my husband And My war will be with you, says he wants to take his time, as usual. Something like “three-four-five years”, a period during which she could work on a novel project that has been lying around for “a long, long time”.
“I think I’ll take a look at it. This would be my next project for now. But sometimes I have long, long periods without writing. I wait. I don’t put pressure on myself. I have a lot of things to do in my life, but it’s always there, there’s always something developing in parallel.”
