Moncton’s newest park, located right next to city hall, pays tribute to the late Acadian poet Gerald Leblanc.
The park received an official inauguration yesterday, via a live stream on Facebook, complete with the raising of the Acadian flag.
It was part of the week-long Festival Acadie Rock and organized with the help of Jo-Anne Elder, who read some translated poems.
“He once said that translation is an gesture of love, to the author and to the world and so on. I started translating his poems just a couple of months before I met him for the first time,” she recalls.
A number of local poets and musicians performed some of Leblanc’s pieces and share how his work impacted theirs.
It included Moncton’s poet poète flyée, Kayla Geitzler.
“Gerald was the kind of guy who could find the pulse of a thing, give it a good squeeze and make it speak. I think that’s really important for, not just a poet but for a person to be able to do that, to find something and understand the truth of it,” she says.
The event even featured a message from Mayor Dawn Arnold.
“Gerald Leblanc was a familiar face in this neighbourhood and Moncton was his muse. He brought our city to life through his poetry and he expressed his profound love of Moncton through his work. It’s truly fitting to honour him and his work in this way,” she says.
Re-watch the whole video below.
https://www.facebook.com/cityofmoncton.villedemoncton/videos/608169220131627/
