Programming
claude périard
Prophéties cathartiques
A series of short prophetic poems that, through the future tense and the pronoun “we,” awaken the imagination and rekindle collective dreams, utopias, and possibilities.
Prophéties cathartiques (Cathartic Prophecies) is a series of short poems inspired by haiku, stemming from a practice begun in the poetry collection Les lumières ont tué la nuit, published by Poètes de brousse.
Written in the first-person plural and in the simple future tense, as prophetic calls, the poems seek to awaken the imagination of passersby in Little Burgundy, making the collective dream—the utopia—possible once again. Like science fiction, the use of the simple future opens up possibilities, gives form to desires for transformation and revolution, and brings alternative realities into view.
The poems also draw on the genre of prophecy. In literature, prophecy is a powerful narrative device: although it purports to offer a mystical revelation of what is to come, it is in fact more often a response to the present, rooted in desire, and seeks to influence readers toward bringing the prophecy itself to fruition. This is the principle of the self-fulfilling prophecy: “A self-fulfilling prophecy is a prediction that comes true by virtue of having been made, insofar as the beliefs arising from the prediction guide a person’s behaviour.” (Madon, Stephanie, Jennifer Willard, Max Guyll, & Kyle C. Scherr (2011), “Self-fulfilling prophecies: Mechanisms, power, and links to social problems,” Social and Personality Psychology Compass).
Inspired by Gaston Miron’s line, “Nous serons devenus les bêtes féroces de l’espoir” [“We will have become the fierce beasts of hope”], each poem begins with the pronoun “We,” followed by a verb in the future tense, and sketches the potential of a desired future.
