One

Winner, Governor General's Award for Poetry

Shortlisted, Governor General's Award for Translation

An elegant testimony to the beautiful and the good, Serge Patrice Thibodeau's One pays homage to the vibrancy and vigor of life, backdropped against the precarious immediacy of the everyday.

From the tiny trunk of opening lines taken from Paul Valéry, Thibodeau unpacks a vision of human consciousness that exists in a state of singular wonder, creating a universe that is at once faithful and ever-changing like the tidal bore — the landscape of mascaret. Thibodeau boldly blends anecdotes, pop-ups, leitmotifs, ecological awareness, and the inner world in variations on the theme of wholeness.