Gaston Miron - Life

Life

Gaston Miron was born in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, in a country region (Laurentides) 100 kilometers north of Montreal. He moved in Montreal in 1947, at a time when Maurice Duplessis was reigning as Quebec premier. In 1953, with Olivier Marchand, Miron published his first work, Deux Sangs at Éditions de l'Hexagone, a publishing house they co-founded. Miron would become the main editor for this publishing house, the first entirely dedicated to Quebec poetry. The editorial line of l'Hexagone was to establish a "national literature" and put an end to the "poet's alienation" in the society of the time . The publications of the new publishing house, which rapidly signed young and innovative poets like Jean-Guy Pilon and Fernand Ouellette, announced a modern and creative poetry that were sustaining and prolonging the earlier efforts of Alain Grandbois, Paul-Marie Lapointe and Roland Giguère, all of whom would later joined the new publishing house.

Parallel to his editing work, Miron publishes several poems, notably his most renowned La Marche à l'amour, in various journals and newspapers, including Le Devoir, Liberté and Parti pris. Perhaps as importantly, he animates several artistic and political circles in cafés around "le carré St-Louis" where he lived. His flamboyant style and articulated speeches made him a popular figure in a then revitalizing Plateau Mont-Royal. This animation is soon followed by various texts, many of which on the status of the French language and on the Quebec political position. These texts, despite not being published at the time, would nevertheless have an important diffusion thanks to Miron's importance in the animation of Montreal intellectual nights, and would contribute to the boiling giving birth to the Quiet Revolution. Miron's relative underground efforts (he did not publish a book since 1953) would be exposed to the public light by an important conference given by Jacques Brault, in 1966, at Université de Montréal, which began by: "Qui parmi nous ne connaît pas Gaston Miron?" (Who among us does not know Gaston Miron?). In the late 1960s, Miron stars in several "nights of poetry" that attracted a wide audience and contributed to place him as a leading voice of Quebec poetry. In 1969, he becomes the father of his lone child, Emmanuelle.

Pressure started to weigh on Miron for him to recollect his fragmented works and publish it under a same cover, and in 1970, despite Miron's feeling that his work was not yet qualified enough for publication, Miron gave in and published L'homme rapaillé. The book, which alternates between poems expressing lyrically a vivid vision of love and those embodying the alienated situation of the French-speaking Québécois, was an instant success and soon attracted many honors. The book was characterized by a highly lyrical style and drew as much in Québécois orality as in formal vocabulary.

Shortly after the publication of his book, Miron is arrested and put in jail without trial during the events of the October Crisis. This arrest solidified his commitment to politics and support for Quebec's political freedom. In 1975, he published his Courtepointes, which would later be integrated in L'homme rapaillé.

In December 1996, in Montreal, Miron died. He became the first Quebec author to receive a state funeral .