The world’s largest French-language poetry festival does not take place in Europe. It is held annually in Québec, a French-speaking province in eastern Canada. This is the International Poetry Festival of Trois-Rivières, which offers a remarkable program of activities along the banks of the majestic St. Lawrence River, halfway between Montréal and Québec City.
The festival was originally supported by the Fondation Les Forges, founded in 1984 by Gaston Bellemare, Jean-Marc Gauthier, Louise Gravel, and Marguerite Veilleux. The foundation’s mission is to promote Québec poetry and support poets from across the Francophone world, notably through educational and cultural activities.
In this spirit, the idea of creating a major event that would draw public interest by bringing poets into public spaces first took root in the early 1980s. In 1985, one year after the creation of the Fondation Les Forges, the project became a reality with the establishment of the festival and the Grand Prix de Poésie of the foundation. That year, eighty poets performed for five thousand poetry lovers at the first edition of the festival, and the celebrated songwriter and poet Félix Leclerc, guest of honor, declared Trois-Rivières the “Poetry Capital.”
Over time, under the presidency of Gaston Bellemare and the direction of Maryse Baribeau, the festival grew and diversified. After five years, it became international, while public attendance and the number of events continued to rise. By 2005, several thousand poetry enthusiasts were taking part in the many activities offered as the festival spread throughout the city—into various institutions, primary and college-level schools, and art galleries—while metal plaques engraved with quotations from guest poets began appearing on walls across town.
After forty years, the leadership was passed from Mr. Bellemare and Ms. Baribeau to a new team. The presidency is now held by Louise Dupré, winner of numerous national and international poetry awards, including the Governor General’s Award, the Jaime Sabines/Gatien Lapointe Prize, and the Vénus Khoury-Ghata Prize. Artistic and general direction is shared by Evelyne Charland and Étienne Poirier, who also lead the Trois-Rivières Book Fair. The transition was handled with great skill—combining continuity with renewal.
“The festival, for me, is full of memories,” recalls Louise Dupré, reflecting on the highly successful opening night, which this year introduced a fresh approach in both staging and content. “This festival, to which I am deeply attached, is a major cultural event in Québec. This year, our goals were continuity and innovation. It’s not about changing everything, but it is natural for a new team to bring its own touch. We want to reach diverse audiences—people of all tastes, younger audiences, and people from different regions. To do this, we aim to present poets from a variety of publishing houses, representing different poetic styles, including more emerging poets, poets from diverse backgrounds, and poets from various regions of Québec so that everyone feels represented. The workshop component is also particularly close to my heart. Seeing Francine Allard, who participated in festival workshops in past years, win the Chatillon Prize—and hearing her beautiful speech at the opening night—was especially moving.”
The new artistic director, Evelyne Charland, first encountered the festival during her college studies, thanks to a teacher from Trois-Rivières who required students to attend three events and write a report. Daughter of the late Denis Charland—an artist, publisher, and teacher who devoted his life to breaking down boundaries between artistic disciplines—Evelyne grew up immersed in the arts. Active in the cultural scene of the Mauricie region for twenty-five years as an actor, stage manager, and director, she hosted numerous festival events over the past decade and became artistic director of the Trois-Rivières Book Fair before taking on this new role. For her, beyond the quality of the poets, venues, and performances, the festive spirit of the event is essential. “The festival is a unique moment—a grand celebration of the arts. The variety of venues allows us to reach many different audiences. There is currently a strong resurgence of interest in poetry among young people. We hope to attract them to the festival by creating new types of events, like Electro-Poetry, where the literary evening becomes a dance floor with integrated improvisations. We’ve set ourselves a three-year horizon to adapt to the diversity of our publics.”
For general director Étienne Poirier—also a children’s author, teacher, and administrative director of the Trois-Rivières Book Fair, now taking on the festival’s general direction—the event is inseparable from the city. “Trois-Rivières is a city fused with literature, and it’s through literature that I discovered it and chose to live here. Two hundred poem excerpts adorn houses, park benches, and offer a year-round literary walk. The annual festival is an international gathering, yet deeply rooted in the community, with activities held in galleries, colleges, and schools, not only locally but in other cities around the world. The poem-lines strung across the city represent the festival as much as the readings held in cafés, restaurants, and cultural venues.”
Some attendees return year after year. Jean-Pierre Lambert is one such devoted festivalgoer. “You could say I entered poetry through this festival. I first came seven years ago, at the suggestion of my friend, the writer Michel Bouvrette, and I discovered a world I didn’t know—one I immediately fell in love with. Since then, I return every year to take part in workshops, listen to poets, and I always leave with a book by an author I’ve discovered here. I also met people with whom Michel and I formed a writing group. We write together all year and will be giving our first collective reading this fall in Saint-Jérôme!”
Curiously, poets from Québec themselves tend not to attend unless they are invited. Asked about this, Michel Leclerc, winner of this year’s Grand Prize, admits he is rather reclusive and generally avoids literary events unless he is participating. However, he says he was impressed during his first visit in 2022 by the quality of the organization and the scope of the festival.
For Gérald Gaudet—essayist and host of the major interviews for almost thirty years—the festival is “a celebration of the spoken word in spaces made for encounter.” “Poetry is a soul inaugurating a form,” he says, quoting Pierre-Jean Jouve. “It always leads us toward what we do not yet know. Each evening has its own color. And this year, there is a sense of freshness, a new energy. It’s very promising.
The dandy poet Jean-Paul Daoust, who has taken part in nearly every edition of the festival, shares this view. “This year, I noticed more young people coming to listen to the poets. You can feel the festival is on the right path and in good hands. The new team is very respectful of the heritage they are receiving—continuing the beautiful tradition of this magnificent event while exploring new strategies to share poetry.”
As for myself, I travel to Trois-Rivières each year with renewed pleasure whenever I am in Québec during the festival, eager to discover the great poetic voices from around the world who gather there. I cherish the privilege of this small world tour, where I can listen to poems read in their original languages by authors from abroad, after hearing their French translations.
One of my favorites this year was the narrative poetry of Zhao Si, a guest from Beijing, who said she was impressed by the number of performance opportunities the festival offered her and by discovering new ways of reading poetry to better reach the public. I returned home with her book, and with collections by other poets I would likely never have encountered without this festival. I will discover them this winter at home, while awaiting the next gatherings to come.
– Nancy Reichl Lange
Nancy R. Lange is an award-winning writer from Laval, Quebec, whose work has been published internationally and translated into seven languages. A poet, workshop facilitator, and cultural organizer, she leads projects promoting women’s empowerment, environmental protection, cultural diversity, and collective expression. She is founder and literary director of Femmes de parole (Women of Speech) and artistic director of RAPPEL: Parole-Création. Her recent books include Tricotés serrés, Trajectoires/Traduire les lieux – tome 2, and Rendre grâce.
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