Without Beginning or End is Jacqueline Bourque’s final testament to a life well lived, written in the wake of a terminal cancer diagnosis. Deeply inspired by her Acadian upbringing along the ocean shores of New Brunswick, these are poems populated by aerialists, painters, and the spirit of Charles Baudelaire.
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- Published in
- Montreal, CA
- Series
- Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series
Table of Contents
- Cover 1
- Copyright 5
- Contents 10
- Falling from High Trees 14
- I Dropped from the Sky That Morning 16
- My Father’s Topcoat 18
- Cap-Pelé Coastline at 4:30 a.m. 19
- Infusion 20
- At Dawn, I Open 21
- A Letter Slips into the Coastline 22
- Preparations 23
- Ancestral Waters 24
- Aerial Vagabonds 26
- Between Thoughts 28
- On a Swath of Land Bordered by the Northumberland Strait 29
- Vatican II Opens the Church’s Window 30
- Two Continents 31
- There Is No Why 32
- Philippe Petit as Prometheus 33
- Posthumous Visit 34
- Divine Motion, 1992 35
- Why Père Chabert Wept When He Read Baudelaire to His First-Year University Class 36
- Père Chabert and the Passion 37
- A House in Chile, a School in L’Acadie 38
- In the Background 39
- Père Chabert’s Legacy 40
- You Will Walk along the River 41
- On Canvas 42
- Enigma of the Arrival and the Afternoon 44
- The Dream of Constantine 45
- Metaphysical Composition 47
- Theseus and the Minotaur 48
- Dream Caused by the Flight of a Bee around a Pomegranate a Second Before Awakening 49
- Detail of the Saint Anthony Panel from the Hermit Saints Triptych, ca. 1505 50
- Icon of the Allegorical Ladder of Saint John Climacus 51
- Allegory of Immortality 52
- Drop Curtain for the Ballet Parade 54
- The City Rises 55
- Time Is a River without Banks 56
- The Tower of Babel 57
- Magdalene with Two Flames 58
- Without Beginning or End 60
- John 62
- Marie 63
- Rain in Cap-Pelé 64
- Topcoat 65
- Train to Boston 66
- Shining Knight 67
- Christmas Eve 68
- John William Becomes a Breadwinner at Fourteen 69
- The Joan Hat 70
- And for a Father Hear a Child 71
- The Pod’s Dark Seeds 72
- Goddess of Nightfall 73
- The Children Now Scattered 74
- My Grandmother Marie 75
- My Grandfather John 76
- Notes 78
- Acknowledgments 80