La marche à l'amour

"La marche à l'amour" is a poem by Gaston Miron (1928-1996), one of the most studied and celebrated in Quebec poetry. It was originally published in "Le nouveau journal" in 1962, in a cycle of seven poems also entitled "La marche à l'amour". A slightly revised version was published in book form in 1970 in "L'homme rapaillé" (the poem would again be revised in a later edition).

Background to the poem

In one interview (http://archives.radio-canada.ca/IDCC-0-72-1234-6809/arts_culture/gaston_miron/), Miron said of "La marche à l'amour" that "all his successive failures in love were projected (in this poem) written back between 1954 to 1958" ("toutes mes expériences, mes échecs successifs dans l'amour, se sont projetés dans (ce poème) qui date de 1954 à 1958).

Several themes of the poem are clearly expressed in the different interviews Miron gave about this time of his life. Part of different interviews he gave will be highlighted below, in italics, along the description of the poem.

Gaston Miron self-described his work as similar in form to the American expressionism a la Jackson Pollock. By this, he meant that his poetry is often characterized by a succession of strong --and sometimes baffling--metaphors. "La marche à l'amour" is good examplar of this style.

His style has also often been characterized as espousing an "oral style" (for example, by the jury that honored him with the prix Quebec-Paris for "L'homme rapaillé"), although controversies abound about the exact extent of this orality (see the book "Miron ou la marche à l'amour" for some strong opposing views). What is certain, though, is that Miron integrated in his poems, notably in "La marche à l'amour", a few expressions of a popular range that he does not hesitate to use in a different context to create an effect. This can be illustrated here by the use of "délabre" ("wretched") and "au bout du rouleau" ("at the end of one's tether") in the verse "Je m'en vais en délabre au bout de mon rouleau" (literally, "I go in wretched (conditions) at the end of my tether").

The poem has ten individual sections, and each section may be viewed as highlighting specific themes. Below are excerpts of the poems, (in italics are English translations by D.G.Jones, from "Earth and Embers" of Guernica Editions) with excerpts of different interviews that refer to the period of his life described by the poem.

Description of the poem

An idealized woman and a humble man

The poem starts by describing a woman...

:Tu as les yeux pairs des champs de rosée:Tu as des yeux d'aventure et d'années-lumière

...and a man who feels boorish, yet fully dedicated...

:Moi, qui suis charpente et beaucoup de fardoches,:Moi, je fonce à vive allure et entêté d'avenir:La tête en bas comme un bison dans son destin

Miron said "I had several deficiences on the emotional level (...) I had a terrible complex: that I was ugly". ("J'étais assez hypothéqué sur le plan affectif (...) J'avais aussi [...] un complexe terrible, qui était celui de la laideur.")

The woman exists in the future

Miron introduces a future tense, yet, in contrast, intensifies her description by highly visual metaphors...

:"all sunlit with existence you will come":"your mouth besieged by all the freshness of the grass":"your body ripened in forgotten gardens":"flowers in the incantations of your breats":"you rise, you are the morning breaking in my arms"

...until we meet the first non-metaphor verses of the poem, where we learn that she exists, but that he still has not met her.

:"I will meet you in the end, somewhere, someplace":"in spite of everything that makes me absent, ache":"with the meagre vision that is left me in the depths of cold":"I affirm o my love that you exist":"I correct our life""

Time has come to change his life

:"no more will we die of listlessness my love":"before the endless miles in the squalls of our dreams"(...):"I will set out to find you, we will live on this earth":"these straits that have reduced me to a drifting hulk":"a balloon to be obscenely pricked, a clown":"with starry tears and deeper wonds, are not invincible":"beat up the air, beat up the fire of my desires":"run me through the silken skies of your hands":"headfirst, preventing my return":"except I mount again becoming upright at your side":"the newcomer sprung from the love of the world":"constellate me in your body's milky way"

"I was discovering my powerlessness towards love, because of (my) deficiences, so in order to pull through, I invented mockery" ("Je décrouvrais mon impuissance vis-à-vis l'amour, à cause de ces tares sur le plan affectif, et pour m'en sortir, j'ai inventé la dérision").

The energy of love flows through him

:"in the sudden showers, stars bursting from my sky":"the lightning streams through my flesh":"and I go on fists clenched in the wind":"a thousand horsepower beating in my heart":"and in my heart a candle's flame"

he is the mediation between him and the universe

She is the mediation between him, the Quebec particular man (ceinture fléchée, danse carrée), and the "universal" (l'univers, l'horizon):

:tu es mon amour:ma clameur mon bramement:tu es mon amour ma ceinture fléchée d'univers:ma danse carrée des quatre coins d'horizon:le rouet des écheveaux de mon espoir:tu es ma réconciliation batailleuse

"With women, I discovered the mediation (...) If I couldn't love through someone, I couldn't lead myself onto the world, onto men. I needed this concrete mediation...so love, for me, was tied to this kind of accession to men, and to the universal" ("Par la femme, j'ai découvert la médiation (...) Si je ne pouvais pas aimer à travers quelqu'un, je ne pourrais pas déboucher sur le monde et sur les hommes. Il me fallait cette médiation concrète...alors l'amour chez moi etait lié à une certaine accession aux hommes, mais aussi à l'universel.")

:à cause de toi:mon courage est un sapin toujours vert:et j'ai du chiendent d'achigan plein l'âme:tu es belle de tout l'avenir épargné:d'une frêle beauté soleilleuse contre l'ombre:ouvre-moi tes bras que j'entre au port:et mon corps d'amoureux viendra rouler:sur les talus du mont Royal:orignal, quand tu brames orignal

An idealized love in opposition to a disorganized world

:"Montréal is large like an universal untidiness":"somewhere in its shadows you are sitting and your heart":"your gaze lights up the sleep of doves":"girl whose face is now my lamplit route"(...):"I will console you with my tears":"for the days without rain or rushes green or thread to spin":"for the risks of love once it's unwound":"and I will light for you great lamps of tenderness":"and we shall rest":"in the light of the seas flowering in manna":"then will I unleash":"within your body all the winds of my blood":"you will rejoice my girl you will rejoice":"to be the woman that you are in my arms":"the world in us will be transformed"

The lyrical and sexual nature of the quest for love

As the quest is named...

:"the advance towards love now spreads to sail":"with quivering stride on the waters wounded with lilies"

...the poem offers its most intense lyrical section...

:"I love, how I love, how you advance":"my ecstasy":"shivering barefoot in the glittering frosts":"in this season sweetly studded with snowdrops":"on these shores where summer rains down":"in long flakes the fiery cries of the plover":"harmonica of the world as you pass and yield":"your body warm as the birch bark in my paddler's arms":"as we lie still, scenting the air in the burning light":"as in the pitching harvest woven by the gales":"I unflod in your warmth of the long cry of the cicada"

...and leads to (an imagined) sexual encounter

:"in you I beget":"the frenzies of the spawning grounds in the heart of the Ottawa":"the cry of the nighthawk comes to beat in your throat":"the earth, love's furniture, your flesh":"erupts pell mell in fresh shoots"

The quest for love reveals its true dimension

Beyond the lyrical nature of the quest lies the more profound, the existential, dimension of the quest for love. He needs love to feel home, that is, to feel inside himself. He knows that his idealized way of loving will not stand (that his garden will be "turned upside down"). Yet, as Miron writes, "I will always be--if I am alone--this man of boundary, wailing her name, frantically unhappy".

:mais que tu m'aimes et si tu m'aimes:s'exhalera le froid natal de mes poumons:le sang tournera ô grand cirque:je sais que tout mon amour:sera retourné comme un jardin détruit:qu'importe je serai toujours si je suis seul:cet homme de lisière à bramer ton nom:éperdument malheureux parmi les pluies de trèfles

Doubts and hope

Despite the doubts that affect him...

:puis les années m'emportent sens dessus dessous:je m'en vais en délabre au bout de mon rouleau:des voix murmurent les récits de ton domaine:à part moi je me parle:que vais-je devenir dans ma force fracassée:ma force noire du bout de mes montagnes

...he still believes in his force to convey his idealized love:

:me voici de nouveau campé dans ta légende:tes grands yeux qui voient beaucoup de cortèges:tes chevaux de bois de tes rires:tes yeux de paille et d'or:seront toujours au fond de mon coeur:et ils traverseront les siècles

This theme of the poem, the persistence to look for love despite the caveats, reveals in the finale as the main theme of the poem. Miron said that "(he) never renounced to the quest (to find love). I had deep dejection, but life is so strong that it always achieves to get back on top, like a "rooted" diving refusing to be uprooted. Like I said in "La marche à l'amour", I refuse tragedy, I refuse failure, and I say we must always yield a 101th chance to love: "j'ai du chien d'achigan plein l'âme"". (Mais je n'ai jamais renoncé (à cette recherche). J'ai des accablements profonds, mais la vie est tellement forte, qu'elle reprend toujours le dessus, comme une plongée racineuse qui ne veut pas déraciner. Comme je le dis dans "La marche à l'amour", je refuse la tragédie, je refuse l'échec, et je dis qu'il faut toujours donner la 101e chance à l'amour: "j'ai du chien d'achigan plein l'âme").

Finale

But as the poet reaches the finale, he does not share anymore the naivety of the beginning. While he still believes in the necessity to walk towards love, he also realizes the futility of his actual life

:je marche à toi, je titube à toi, je meurs de toi:lentement je m'affale de tout mon long dans l'âme:je marche à toi, je titube à toi, je bois:à la gourde vide du sens de la vie:à ces pas semés dans les rues sans nord ni sud:à ces taloches de vent sans queue et sans tête:je n'ai plus de visage pour l'amour:je n'ai plus de visage pour rien de rien

Four years have passed from the first moment he started this poem, with so many lost memories at the tip of his fingers. He still waits for his true love, but he gained something: in this quest, he has revealed as he is, free of his false "aureole" of his life:

:parfois je m'assois par pitié de moi:j'ouvre mes bras à la croix des sommeils:mon corps est un dernier réseau de tics amoureux:avec à mes doigts les ficelles des souvenirs perdus:je n'attends pas à demain je t'attends:je n'attends pas la fin du monde je t'attends:dégagé de la fausse auréole de ma vie

External links

*http://www.pierdelune.com/miron1.htm