Denise Desautels | The Night Will Be Insistent: Selected Poems 1987-2002 | Gazelle Books

The writings of Denise Desautels have circulated in Quebec and Europe for some thirty years or so. She is considered to be one of the most talented poets in Quebec, often taking inspiration from the visual arts which she has a gift for seeing in words. As her translator, I was very conscious of this aspect of her work, and when various choices arose in the course of the translation process, I almost always opted for the most pictorial or the most visual element possible. ‘A picture is worth a thousand words’ as the saying goes, but the picture, once created, can give rise in the poet’s mind to metaphors and ‘word art’ that allow us to see the same picture in a totally new and profound way. Denise Desautels has performed this feat of poetic legerdemain brilliantly in The Night Will be Insistent.” — Daniel Sloate Continue reading