Background
Jean-Paul Daoust was born on January 30, 1946, in Valleyfield, Quebec, Canada. He is the son of Jules Daoust and Adrienne (Beausoleil) Daoust.
2900 Edouard Montpetit Blvd, Montreal, QC H3T 1J4, Canada
Daoust received his Master of Arts degree from the University of Montreal in 1976.
Daoust was a member of the editorial board for the magazine Estuaire for ten years from 1993.
(Sandbar is a collection of vignettes set at The Sandbar, ...)
Sandbar is a collection of vignettes set at The Sandbar, a small-town watering hole in Northern Michigan owned by an eccentric man and his wife, where their Nephew gains an appreciation for exotic cocktails and sherry at an early age.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1927443288/?tag=2022091-20
2013
Jean-Paul Daoust was born on January 30, 1946, in Valleyfield, Quebec, Canada. He is the son of Jules Daoust and Adrienne (Beausoleil) Daoust.
Daoust received his Master of Arts degree from the University of Montreal in 1976.
Daoust has had collections of French-language poetry published since 1976. He published his volume Les Cendres bleues in 1990. Since then, some of the poetry, preceding Les Cendres bleues, has been translated for readers of English. The first such volume is 1991’s Black Diva: Selected Poems, 1982-1986. Daoust has also penned two novels, including 1983’s Soleils d'acajou. He served as a professor at Cegep Edouard-Montpetit.
His volume of poetry Black Diva was translated by Daniel Sloate. The poems therein contain a great deal of imagery surrounding young male adolescents; they reminded Erin Moure, critiquing Black Diva in Books in Canada, of the young male angels in Wim Wenders’ motion picture, Wings of Desire. Citing a line from Black Diva that runs, “Because to be happy / You always do things / That make you tremble all over,” Moure concluded: “The book does that. Makes me tremble all over, that is.” The reviewer also put in a good word for the volume’s introduction by Daoust’s fellow poet, Andre Roy.
Another well-known volume of Daoust’s work is 1982’s Poemes de Babylone. As the title foreshadows, in this collection Daoust compares modern cities— ranging from Montreal to New York, Hollywood, and Las Vegas—to the ancient Biblical kingdom of Babylon. As Sarah Lawall observed in the French Review, Poemes de Babylone “is no celebration of Pagan richness. Daoust’s Babylon is—in the traditional image of militant Christian literature—a symbol of modern decadence and sterility.” The collection is divided into three sections titled “Poeme de nuit”, “Poemes de ville” and “Poemes de voyage.” In the first segment, the night is portrayed as mere negative space, a contrast to the day in which one can at least entertain illusions of meaning. The second segment focuses on the topic of current major cities—especially those of the United States—and the frenetic but futile lives lived within them. The city is the fast-paced illusion Daoust opposes to the night in the first segment; the second segment is thus filled with imagery of neon lights, television advertising, and People who use too much makeup. The poetic narrator is filled with despair, even in the daylight. The third segment, though referring promisingly to trips, is in reality only the dreams of the narrator, who can escape from the cities of the second segment only through his imagination. Even his dreams of exotic locales such as Thailand and Egypt turn them into barren, desert places with no life. “Even the possibility of love,” reported Lawall, “which is usually the poet’s panacea for life’s misery and the ills of society, is a parched, mummified, dead experience.” The critic described Poemes de Babylone as having “aggressively modern overtones”.
Additionally, Daoust was a member of the editorial board for the magazine Estuaire for ten years from 1993.
(Sandbar is a collection of vignettes set at The Sandbar, ...)
2013(Essential Poets Series 48)
1991(Essential Poets Series 94)
1999Daoust is openly gay.