Hi everyone,
Meet Edouard Beaupre: Born in 1881 to homesteaders in Willow Bunch, Saskatchewan, he grew rapidly due to a pituitary abnormality, eventually measuring 8'3". His dream of being a cowboy dashed (so tall his feet dragged on the ground), and to support his family who were very poor, he toured with various circus sideshows, displaying his height and performing feats of strength. (This despite being very shy.) He died of TB in 1904 (age 23) at the St. Louis World's Fair.
You'll be getting to know more about Edouard over the month of May.
Not sure how often I'll post, but I'm looking forward to the work and reading what all of you are up to.
Cheers!
Kerry
David’s stone
1.
Each breath a wave that grabs a new handful of sludge from the reedy depths, dredges stones and junk to clatter along ribs, echo through chest.
2.
Dust-strafed
Hail-pocked
Wind-thrashed
Summer-scorched
Turned mush by freeze-thaw-freeze
Vine-strangled
Light-starved
Mite-infested
Blood-sucked
Lungs
slowly eroded, as if by vultures
3.
On The Pike I’m a Titan, lifting cannon balls and anchors, men and mares above my head. Ten cents to see me, another dime for a photo. The show always swarmed, but no one sees the rot under my long coat, muscle gone maggoty, skin greyed by shallow breath.
4.
Can’t laugh,
turn my head from every crude joke,
so as not to stoke the cough.
Can’t sleep,
only ten minutes in a hard chair
until my neck quakes.
Can’t eat,
no strength to cut the meat,
work the jaw.
Can’t take the handkerchief away
from my lips without thinking the blood
is like berries mashed in a child’s palm.
8 comments:
how wonderful. my great great grandfather founded Willow Bunch!
Edouard was Métis I believe, as is Willowbunch also a very strong M. community. At least all the people I know who are related to him, are Métis. (One of my friends' teenage sons is exhibiting some signs, actually - they are concerned how tall he may turn out.) An interesting project. sometimes they would pass out and people wd think they were dead, but it was just...the heart having trouble pumping so far or something? I have no technical comments at this time, I'm too busy being enthusiastic.
Very nice, K.
(I had childhood asthma, so I have some inkling of Edouard's pneumatic difficulties...)
A few notes:
"Turned mush by freeze-thaw-freeze" in the second part sticks out, literally and otherwise. It just doesn't quite work for me, though I like what you're going for...
"Blood-sucked" also is missing its object (dust/wind/summer/vine). Leeches? Mosquitoes? Deer/horse flies? (Also, it may be redundant, as I think mites also drink blood...)
Also, I'm not sure if vultures are slow, the way "eroded" suggests a gradual, almost imperceptible disappearance.
In the third part, "skin greyed by shallow breath" isn't quite as effective as the two (awesome) items that precede it. How about "skin grey" ?
In the fourth part, I want harsher line breaks in the last part...or longer dreamier lines to contrast more severely with what has come before.
In no 2, maybe "Turned mush by freeze-thaw-freeze" could work at the end-- even replacing the phrase "as if eaten by vultures"? Just a thought; that line stuck out for me, too. And the "as if" in the last line feels like it backs off a bit from the directness of the other images.
On the whole I like what you're doing with this, though. I found no. 1 especially vivid, the sounds combined with the implication of what this must feel like to Edouard.
Sms: Are you related to JL Legare?
Andie: Do you know how your friends are related to Edouard?
So excited to have these Willow Bunch connections on board for Mayday!
And thanks, too, for the technical comments Ariel and Joanne.
Kerry: looking at his family tree I can see several familiar family names. I'm only guessing, she's up north right now so I can't ask her, but I think she directly has Beaupre's in her family on her mom's side. Métis fams were quite large and married one another, it was a tight community. I have other friends who are Piche and Deslisle, which I see are some other branches of E's fam. Def Métis (he spoke Cree & Sioux as well as Fr & English - likely Michif most commonly tho' it's not listed as such - that's ok. I had a francophone tell me a few months ago Michif is "not a real language". Then an English video made by B.C. teachers describing Métis as "French speaking tribe of Indians". Sigh.)
1. is great.
What if you took out that long line in the middle of 2. and put it the end of that list (maybe "turned to mush/by freeze-thaw-freeze") and then added a verb to "as if ___ by vultures" (scavenged?)
The ending stanza of this is a big yes.
Will this be a tall tale?
In 1974, the Band Beau Dommage sang an Ode to this Forgotten Giant. After his death in 1904, his body was kept at Université de Montreal. The Song helped the family to bring him home. But it took until July 7, 1990 for le Geant Beaupre to be buried in Willow Bunch. Power of the Words!! Mightier than thr Sword. Long Live May Day !!
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