Literary CV

ARTISTIC PROCESS:
I have always loved words, the vehicle of my emotions, a music of the soul. The words challenge me, bring me elsewhere, make me dream. One word and my imagination is on the way. Where does my source of inspiration come from? Sometimes a visual artwork, sometimes a verse from someone else, sometimes random words pointed in the dictionary or elsewhere, sometimes subjects imposed in the context of a workshop. Often an event lived intensely. The News are also involved. The procedure does not matter. On the other hand, the emotion that emerges from the text is very important to me and represents ‘the essential’. The text must absolutely return the emotion that inhabits me.

I sign my poems Eugenia to dissociate my painted works from my writings. Also to pay tribute to the two most important women of my life, my mother Eugenie who showed me perseverance and resilience as well as my grandmother Exilda who passed on to me her passion for the arts and the taste for writing. An amalgam of these two names with emotional resonance.
 
BIOGRAPHY:
Self-taught, native of Saint-Étienne de Beauharnois, Claudette Poirier painter and Eugénia poet, one and the same person. For me, everything is an excuse to relate a story, whether visual or literary. I am a member of RAAV (2001), Culture Montérégie (2002) and the Cercle des Poètes de la Montérégie (2011).

It was following dramatic events, experienced live, at short intervals, including the death of my boss at the office (1985), followed by my husband’s death at age 46 (1986), as well as the Polytechnique massacre (1989), that I consult a psychologist. She strongly advises me to put words to the emotions that suffocate me. This is how this writing adventure begins.

In 2015, I wrote the book « Montserrat, initiateur de changements » the intense and extraordinary experience lived in Montserrat, a great factor of change in my artistic approach, a biographical collection containing texts, poetry, and images before and after Montserrat.

In order to demonstrating that everyone’s experience influences the creation and perception of an artistic work, I created in 2008 the event « Mille mots en images » where, side by side, painters and poets speak on an imposed theme. The last 8th collection was published in 2020 « Méditation poétique sur les pierres sauvages », ISBN : 978-2-9813346-5-7.

More recently, in June 2018, I had the pleasure of participating in the International Festival of Plastic Arts of Monastir in Tunisia where I created a visual work accompanied by a poem entitled « La femme tunisienne ». This poem ended up in the Governor’s office. What a marvellous surprise!
EUGÉNIA, CURRICULUM VITAE
BACKGROUND:
Self-taught;
RECITAL OF POETRY DURING THE FOLLOWING EVENTS:
2022 Cercle des poètes de la Montérégie Recital, participation in Kevin Nichka-Boire show, Chambly Guard Corps, August 13;
2022 « Parcours » recital, Résidence Notre-Dame-de-Richelieu, Richelieu, July 14;
2022 « Poèmes à la carte » recital, Bibliothèque Françoise-Maurice, Coaticook, April 27;
2018 Les Résidences Richeloises, McMasterville, poem ‘Les naufragés oubliés’, October 21;
2018 Harp and poetry, City of Saint-Basile-le-Grand, poems: ‘L’œuvre de Chagall’ and ‘Vivre au temps présent’, April 27;
2017 Houses SNJM Longueuil, ‘Je suis un jardin’, January;
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PERSONAL PUBLICATIONS:
2015 Poetic biography: ‘Montserrat – initiateur de changements’, Éditions Belle Feuille, July 2015, ISBN for printed version: 978-2-924530-29-0, ISBN for the digital version: 978-2-924530-30-6.
GROUP PUBLICATIONS:
2020 « Méditation poétique sur les pierres sauvages » Mille mots en images, 2020 edition, ISBN : 978-2-9813346-5-7, poems « L’alchimiste » et « Ni d’Ève ni d’Adam »;
2019 « Écrire avec les poètes » Cercle des poètes de la Montérégie, 2019, ISBN : 978-2-981-3346-4-0;
2018 « La musique de l’âme », Éditions mp tresart, ISBN: 978-2-9816519-1-4, pages 68-71 and 76-79;
2016 « Et si les mots parlaient », Éditions mp tresart, ISBN: 978-2-9813646-7-9, pages 36-38;
2016 « Plongée dans les eaux de la mémoire » inspired by « Histoire d’eau » about the Empress of Ireland, 9 octobre;
2016 « Kasala », poems from CPM, ISBN: 978-2-981-3346-2-6;
2016 Mille mots en images – « Exubérance » ISBN: 978-2-9811366-6-4, pages 28 & 46, pages 15 & 81;
2016 « La lumière et les mots », poems, ISBN: 948-2-9813346-2-6;
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PUBLIC READINGS:
2011 « Amies, soeurs, femmes ». I read this poem in front of the parliamentary guests at the Salon of the Speaker of the House of Commons in Ottawa, approximately fifty, on March 8, 2011, where we celebrated Women’s Day. On this day, I was invited by Alexandra Mendès MP, to exhibit the Collective ‘Jamais je n’oublierai le 6 décembre 1989′, a 5′ x 8’ mural painting, a project I conducted in 2010 with the collaboration of the personnel and students of École Polytechnique de Montréal to commemorate and pay tribute to the victims of this sad tragedy.
2009 ‘Amies, sœurs, femmes’. Poem read by Céline Lemire-Mercier during the ceremony held at the Notre-Dame church in Montreal to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the tragedy that occurred December 6, 1989 at Polytechnique;