Two Cultures Press :: a minute or two / without remembering (2010)

a minute or two / without remembering
Claudia Coutu Radmore
Published by Two Cultures (2010)

“These poems are in the voices of my actual direct ancestors and their close ancestral relatives between the years 1672 to 1792. Speakers were chosen who would best portray the history, culture and actual experiences of New France settlers. For the most part, their lives would have been typical of the habitant lifestyle in the rural areas. Though the Cottu (Coutu) family would become habitants of the Seigneurie at Lavaltrie, roughly 40 km east of Montreal on the north side of the St. Lawrence River, the family would spend ten years within Montreal’s walls (1690 – 1700) for safety during the height of the Iroquois raids.“
––from the Introduction

Two Cultures Press (2010)
ISBN: 978-0-9809273-5-1
Softcover (6x9 inches) 98 pages
First edition: $22

a minute or two - without remembering (2010)

Excerpt

to keep ones' self free

to keep ones’ self free

la pauvresse has stolen
only a small thing but is judged
too free with her tongue.

nonetheless for a woman
of her kind her sentence is light
only nine months in

a quebec cell. however
marie-anne declares she can not
live in so small

and uncomfortable
a cell for nine months and one
day hangs herself.

homicide of course.
according to custom the judges
order her dead body

back to court whereas
since it does not satisfactorily
respond to the witnesses

said body
is condemned to be displayed
upside down in front

of the prison for
twenty-four hours then thrown
into the river.

justice done for someone
too free with her tongue and too
free with her self.