A critically acclaimed collection of haunting and unforgettable meditations from one of Acadie's best-loved poets. Moving from playful erudition to melancholy, Chiasson explores essential questions about art and creativity, while at the same time delving into the roots of the Acadian experience. Touching on the lives and work of numerous artists, including Rimbaud, Kerouac, Picasso, Giotto, Cendrars, and Duchamp, Chiasson offers a modernist perspective on the masterpieces of the past. With essays extending from art to literature, from memory to a child's crayons, he explores his subjects with the rich palette of a poet, bringing together a collection of "recits des apprentissages," which comment on the panoply of human experience.

"Climates" is suffused with the single-minded desire to fully inhabit, and be inhabited by, a place: Acadie. The political push-and-pull of being Acadian is a constant, even when the mutability of personal life is in the foreground. The four sections of "Climates" each correspond to a season, and each is marked by unity of tone, atmosphere, and form.

First published in 1974, Mourir a Scoudouc emerged out of a period of cultural awakening. Chiasson's poems denounced the narrow limitations of the past and traced the lines of a fresh collective vision. The poems were lyrical, referentially modern, and steeped in the rhythms and forms that had emerged from the Americas, Europe, and India. Now, more than 40 years later, Hermenegilde Chiasson is considered to be the father of Acadian modernism, and Mourir a Scoudouc is widely regarded as one of the foundational works of modern Acadian literature. Several of the poems, including the oft-anthologized long poem, "Eugenie Melanson," have now achieved iconic status, appearing frequently in books, magazines, and films in French and in English. To Live and Die in Scoudouc is the first English edition of this seminal collection. It replicates Chiasson's design of the 2017 edition and features his own photographs as well as his new introductory essay. Although several of the poems have been previously translated, To Live and Die in Scoudouc features fresh renditions by Jo-Anne Elder, who worked closely with Chiasson on the translations.

St. Thomas University has nurtured exemplary people for a century -- from its first alighting in Newcastle to its current perch on a Fredericton hilltop. Here, in celebration of St. Thomas's 100th anniversary, is the first-ever collection of fiction, poetry, and prose by the university's most celebrated writers, including David Adams Richards, Sheldon Currie, Leo Ferrari, Sheree Fitch, and Kathy Mac. Philip Lee's thrumming account of a public auction kicks off the collection. Next up: Sheree Fitch's poem, "Cop," which wends through undercover prostitution and a child's abduction. Hard on its heels: Sheldon Currie's pitch-perfect story from a Nova Scotia coal-mining town. Once you begin, you're sure to read until the entire, delectable volume is consumed.

For Hermenegilde Chiasson, every work of art is both a cry and a prayer. "Beatitudes" reflects this perspective by connecting everyday events -- people losing their keys or their cellphone signals -- to the universal. Sighs, silences, and human utterances all become part of an ongoing incantation that ranges from the personal to the textual, from the local to the cosmopolitan. In this postmodern "sermon on the mount," Chiasson has created a tour de force at once compassionate and complex, thoughtful and illuminating.

A meditation on what it means to be human, Chiasson writes from a deep sense of melancholy. Exploring the common bonds of humanity, he creates a tonal montage that probes our notions of who we are and who we might become. Beginning in mid-sentence and ending not with a period but a comma, "Beatitudes" is Hermenegilde Chiasson's most important work to date, with beautiful lines that continue to echo long after they have been read. It will be released simultaneoulsy in French by Editions Prise de Parole.

It's often said that the main export of the Maritimes is Maritimers, and the same is true of Newfoundland. "Going down the road" is a way of life, but so is coming home for Christmas. It is tradition marked by happiness, fun, and sometimes less comfortable emotions. Given the regional penchant for yarn spinning, this common experience yields an abundance of stories.

In "An Orange from Portugal," editor Anne Simpson takes liberties with the concept of "story" to produce a book bursting with Christmas flavour. Many of her choices are fiction, others are memoirs, tall tales, poems, or essays, and still others defy classification. Some authors are nationally and even internationally famous, some are well known in the region, and others are published here for the first time. Spanning more than a century of seasonal writing, the collection includes a description of killing a pig aboard the sailing ship "Argonauta" for Christmas dinner; Hugh MacLennan"s Halifax waif who wants nothing more than for Santa to bring him a real orange, an orange from Portugal; a story by Alden Nowlan and another by Harry Bruce giving very different versions of what the animals in the barn do on Christmas Eve; a story about Jewish children hanging up their stockings; and very new work by young writers Lisa Moore and Michael Crummey. Beautiful poems by Lynn Davies, Milton Acorn and others leaven the collection for readers of all persuasions. Other authors include: Wayne Johnston, Mary Pratt, David Adams Richards, Carol Bruneau, Wilfred Grenfeld, L.M. Montgomery, Paul Bowdring, Grace Ladd, Herb Curtis, Joan Clark, Ernest Buckler, Rhoda Graser, Bert Batstone, Elisabeth Harvor, David Weale, Charles G.D. Roberts, Ronald F. Hawkins, Mark Jarman, Elsie Charles Basque, Richard Cumyn, Hermenegilde Chiasson, Stan Dragland, Alistair MacLeod and Bernice Morgan.

"An Orange from Portugal" is a Christmas feast, with the scent of turkey and the sound of laughter wafting from the kitchen, and a flurry of snow outside the window.

Ces deux - classiques - du repertoire acadien illustrent avec justesse les rapports des adolescents entre eux et ceux qu ils entretiennent avec la societe. Des thematiques importantes y sont abordees, dont le deracinement, le contact des cultures et le suicide. Dans Pierre, Helene et Michael, Helene est dechiree entre l amour sur mais sedentaire que lui offre Pierre et son desir ardent de sortir de son milieu, de mordre dans la vie, maintenant. Elle rencontre Michael, un anglophone de Toronto, qui lui offre une porte de sortie. Dans Cap Enrage, des circonstances mysterieuses entourent la mort du jeune Martin. S agit-il d un meurtre ou d un suicide ? L enquete devoile une histoire pleine de rebondissements."