REDESIGN
Danielle
Laliberté
REDESIGN
© 2009 Danielle Laliberté
All Rights Reserved
Layout and design by Danielle Laliberté
Type Book Antiqua 11/12
FIRST EDITION
For
the women of FAS 329/WST 301/WST 501 – you are all role
models
CONTENTS
As in Writing
Somewhere on the Border
Notre Dame de Chez Nous
Sang Real
Le Linge à Vaisselle
Maybe Indian or Hawaiian
Alleluia, That’s My Jesus
The Real Book of Life
Evolution
C’est Un Bon Français
Argument
La Troisième Langue
À La Recherche de la Vérité
ACKNOWLEDGE
MENTS
I am very grateful to Megan London, editor of
The
Accompanist, who
published an early version of “Maybe Indian or Hawaiian”
and Lisa Michaud, la rédactrice of Le
Forum, for
publishing “À La Recherche de la Vérité” in the Fall 2009
issue.
REDESIGN
We
have NOT had our Quiet Revolution...
~ Rhea
Côté Robbins
AS
IN WRITING
For
KN
Your passport
is strictly old American,
but your voice has the grain
of Montreal
and every word sings
with Cohen’s rhythm.
I learned from this the soul
is a real place you can write
from
and those neat little boxes
could transport you there.
How do you write a good poem?
With a twist of Pound’s edict-
tell me something I don’t know
or help me see it in a new way.
If it was my poem….
SOMEWHERE ON THE BORDER
There is a land where no river
establishes nationality or dialect.
Where signage is in French,
understood by all
and everyone goes to Church
on Sundays.
Where kitchens smell
like buckwheat flour and chicken
and memeres sing old tunes
to violins and tapping spoons.
Somewhere blanketed in green fields
sylvan rivers flow
and Longfellow’s heroes of L’Acadie
never left their beloved patrie.
Yet this is only a fantasy,
breathing life into phantoms
forever exiled.
Here we live duplicitous lives,
speaking a covert language
in secret
falsifying assimilation
into this America,
this land of the free and brave,
forever standing on guard for thee.
NOTRE DAME DE CHEZ NOUS
Longfellow painted her smooth
seventeen years old, at her prime
black eyes brilliant,
and tresses soft brown.
an ethereal beauty dressed in
charity, meekness, love,
hope, forgiveness, and patience,
(don’t forget the golden celestial halos
dangling from her earlobes)
and blue like Mary,
faithful to her Gabrielle
and the Church ‘til the bittersweet end.
Maillet envisioned her darker,
a poor washwoman,
une sagouine
who spoke the tongue
along with some things we’d rather not
see or hear.
Peyroux’s lady was hard
and of the street,
beloved, broken into and caressed
where souls wrestled angels
in the dark and lost.
But where is Notre Dame de Chez Nous
the hero of our age?
She who speaks.
her voice grainy,
hands cracked and bleeding,
who sands up straight
on her own two swollen feet.
She, neither saint nor whore
but flesh,
clean and proud.
who both wounds and heals.
Her eyes would be red,
not from tears.
SANG
REAL
It is an attribute, to be unmixed
forceful and full of substance.
This is to imply that there is some choice
as to the decisions made generations before you.
As if saying
I am
French on both sides
all the way back to Charlemagne
is a
personal achievement
better than our sisters
with sharp dark eyes.
Believe me, it is rare
that any Franco American
has not been touched
by that hidden race.
Denial doesn’t change blood-
you should know.
LE LINGE A VAISSELLE
I.
Only the goddesses are weavers,
creating elegant shrouds by day
and ripping them out each night
dexterously fingering destiny.
II.
Stitches are the evidence
recording each thought
in rhythm like breath-
its symmetry a miraculous
memory.
III.
The first yarn over,
a barely perceptible ripple
but when continued
a holy border is formed
to allow escape
from the tight center.
IV.
The skill is passed down
through generations
like family recipes
subversive patterns
safely preserved.
V.
When the fingers bind
the last stitch the cloth
begins life, her daily companion
something soft to hold onto,
touching each dish and table surface
as she does.
VI.
It is given as a gift
one woman to another
a sacred symbol,
freedom.
MAYBE
INDIAN OR HAWAIIAN
Her
skin’s swarthy tone
reveals a family secret
of a distant relative
but her mahogany hair
and feisty attitude
are characteristically French.
When I asked her what
she wanted to mange
at a
restaurant she scorned me
for using French -
it was embarrassing.
When she was young
I brought her books
from Québec and Montreal,
ma
‘tite messager
now
studies Spanish.
Even if Angie rather rely
on her D cups than
la
langue de l’amour
her favorite meal
is crêpes and bacon,
and although she dreams
of discovering
she is from Hawaii,
she is still French.
ALLELUIA,
THAT’S MY JESUS
Je
crois en Dieu, le Père tout-puissant,
créateur du ciel et de la terre.
I
believe that Aves and Notre Pères
should be recited before Mass.
I like my Mass recited in English
missing “h’s,” and substituting “d’s” for t’s.”
I hear Angels in that French punctuated rhythm,
and songs sung from the French Song Book by
‘tite
vieilles.
The children of today complain
they want these words
they cannot understand replaced
by false and hollow substitutes.
Have they forgotten that in their pre-embryonic bliss,
this was how God spoke?
THE REAL
BOOK OF LIFE*(see
below)
is
not kept in the nightstand drawer
or on the bookshelf
with the family history written
inside the front cover.
It is in the heart of the home,
full of dried batter, fingerprints
curses and corrections;
it is tossed on the counter or shelf
or momentarily put away in a cupboard,
torn and losing pages.
I’m sorry God, this is how a culture
is maintained, through the stomach.
EVOLUTION
Cannuck:
I.
Canule: Petit tuyau que l’on adapte a l’extrémité d’une
seringue, d’un tube à injection.
II.
Canuck 1820’s. Probably from the Iroquoian "CANUCHSA",
someone in a "KANATA"(village)…but possibly from Hawaiian
"KANAKA" (man), through a pidgin used in the fur trade (in
which Pacific islanders were employed), and taken into
French as "CANAQUE", perhaps being originally applied to
French Canadian canoemen.
III.
Inuit (Eskimo) word "inuk," meaning "man."
IV.
The word is derived from Connaught, a term said to be given
by French Canadians to the Irish.
V.
A term for Canadians like "Yankee" to Americans. Comes from
a WWI comic book called "Johnny Canuck" a Canadian soldier
in the war.
VI.
"The term Canuck is first recorded about 1835 as an
Americanism,
originally referring specifically to a French Canadian.
This was probably the original meaning, though in Canada
and other countries, "Canuck" refers to a Canadian."
VII.
1835, cross between
Canada and
Chinook, the
native people in the Columbia River region. In U.S., often
derogatory.
C’EST
UN BON FRANÇAIS
Toute ma
vie j’avais peur
des Québécois,
mes ancêtres, des années
qui me séparent et m’appellent
jusqu’au moment j’ai réalisé
que je
suis française
et je
parle français.
Cette fois je ne suis pas gênante,
je parle comme le monde-
personne me parle en anglais.
ARGUMENT
If you
want to spread
the French language
in America,
start with Maine.
Don’t come
with fancy literature,
we can’t read it.
Bring no music
from France or Quebec,
ça
dit rien à nous autres.
Surtout
do not
try
to teach us French
on
parle français.
On est français.
Begin
with what
we have,
speak to us-
we will
listen.
LA
TROISIÈME LANGUE
On parle
francais,
mais il faut qu’on pense.
We speak English
with an effort not to mix
words or say wayon
but it takes time.
Chez nous y parle les deux ensemble
parce que c’est beaucoup plus easy.
This patois
is a
language
degraded by literary purists
as mere inter-language
is good enough
for Antonine Maillet
France Daigle,
and the thousands of Canadians
in new Brunswick who speak
Brayon and Chiac,
all of us Franco-
Americans stuck
in these
petites difficultés d’existence.
À LA
RECHERCHE DE LA VERITE
Après
Ourika
Vous qui
êtes tombé
avec les dernières feuilles,
je vous parle
dans cette langue emprunté.
Vous avez défraîchi
de ce que vous avez caché-
qu’est ce que vous avez~?
Vous dit simplement
ma
position et ma couleur~-
est-ce que c’est vrais~?
Confiez-moi votre secret!
Les autres dit c’est l’amour non récompensé,
l’ évasion, ou la disparition lente,
mais moi je pense
que c’est la résistance silencieuse.
*Taken
from:
Cote, Rhea, "The Real book of
Life..." Message to AB, Wednesday, November 11, 2009
2:44:50 PM. Email.
"The cookbook of
life rendered for what it is. That
which sustains the generations to come. Pride, not shame in
the female cook pot. Modern day tapestry of living
unparalleled in its boasts. On parle français, ici the
commercial advertisements read. Understood, at last."
--Wednesday's
Child,
Chapter 14, ©1997
Rhea Cote Robbins
And
"The apron a signal of fierce pride at home. Flour
fingerprints, greased, left on the book of
life, Better
Homes and Garden Cookbook. The sustaining graces of home
cooked meals from memory. Tourtière as ambrosia of the
Franco-Americans."
--'down
the Plains,' Chapter 45, ©1997
Rhea Cote Robbins
Original emails:
AB
writes:
Under the Women of the French &
Indian War, it somewhat surprised me to
to "18th Century Cuisine Blog." As much of a stereotype as
it is for a woman to be cooking, I think that cuisine is
such a strong part of any cultures history and women should
be admired for the work to support their communities.
Rhea
Cote writes: whoa! What
is the REAL book of life? The COOKBOOK...don't let 'em fool
you...
EH writes:
I'm
one of those women who read cookbooks as if they're
novels....:) EH
Rhea Cote
writes:
THEY are...in reality...like quilts...stories of lives...I
have my memere Cote's book...her fav...you can tell which
recipes she cooked the most...they pages are all spilled
on, etc. My father always praised up her cream rolls...the
page is a mess...
I have a funny story about my own fav cookbook...I tried
making oil pastry one time when I was out of
shortening...and what a mess...I did something wrong...and
we had so little money I had no room for waste...and in my
frustration, I wrote in the cookbook my reaction to the
recipe...and anyone who uses my book cracks up! I put:
Whatever you do, don't EVER make this shit again." Poor pie
crust recipe...me picking on it.
Rhea
RC writes: hehe thanks for the chuckle! I
do things like this too...and laugh at myself when I read
it later! should look at other people's cookbooks more
often, never know what you might see!
EH writes:
Rhea, That's so funny! I love it when
I find a notation on a cookbook page. So often, I've picked
up the cookbook at a yard sale or churck bizarre and don't
know the person who made the notation. It's not a bad
feeling, but sometimes, I wish I knew! And, I don't have
cookbooks from my grandmother. I actually don't think she
used one! And, thankfully, I still have my mom. She's like
a walking cookbook!....EH