François Turcot audio reading from My Dinosaur at the Spring 2016 Launch
49th Shelf Most Anticipated Spring 2016 Poetry Selection
There’s a real fascination with fathers in Québécoise literature, and this recurring persona populates fiction, films, and the stories people tell of their families and themselves. Thus, it’s not surprising that, as he witnessed his own father’s growing frailty, François Turcot-one of Quebec’s most celebrated young literary voices-would write his own dedication to his vanished father, entitled My Dinosaur. In this, his first collection of poems to be published in English (and translated by renowned poet Erín Moure), Turcot pays tribute not just to the father, but also to the figure of the son, and to writing itself as key to story, emotion, memory, and history.
As a prolonged metaphor for the endurance of memory, Turcot’s meticulous assembly in My Dinosaur is a tribute to all our Dads.
Listen to the reading:
