Mainly known for his Ode au Saint-Laurent (Ode to the Saint Lawrence, 1963), Gatien Lapointe is representative of the Hexagone poets, a group of writers who gave Quebec literature a new spirit of independence and a distinct postcolonial voice. A sign of his lasting influence is the society Les Amis de Gatien Lapointe, founded and directed by the Quebec poet Cécile Cloutier.

Joseph-Gatien-Fernand Lapointe was born on 18 December 1931 in Sainte-Justine-de-Dorchester, a small town in the Etchemain valley, seventy miles south of Quebec and three miles from the United States border. His parents, Evangéliste and Elisa Lessard Lapointe, worked the family farm. According to the poet, this land--where "tout est excessif et lointain" (everything is excessive and distant)--provided the raw material of his poetry.

In 1937 he was enrolled in the local grade school, and in 1943 his father died, a personal tragedy for Lapointe which left...