Alfred DesRochers
Alfred DesRochers was a notable Quebecois poet born on October 5, 1901, in Saint-Elie d'Orford, a village in the eastern townships of Quebec. His poetic work, particularly the acclaimed collection "A l'ombre de l'Orford," reflects the rural and natural beauty of his homeland, as well as the lives of laborers, drawing inspiration from his formative experiences in various jobs, including as a delivery boy and foundry apprentice. DesRochers's education was cut short by personal tragedy, yet he emerged as a significant literary figure during the interwar period, celebrated for his formal poetic structures and vernacular language. Throughout his career, he contributed extensively to the local literary scene and served as a member of the Société des ecrivains d'Est, fostering connections among writers. He worked for 25 years at the Sherbrooke newspaper La Tribune and briefly served in the Canadian army during World War II. After a productive life that included six children and multiple poetry collections, DesRochers garnered several prestigious awards, including the Prix Duvernay and an honorary doctorate from the University of Sherbrooke. He received the Companion of the Order of Canada in 1978, shortly before his passing, and a mountain peak at Mont Orford was named in his honor, reflecting his lasting impact on Canadian literature.
On this Page
Subject Terms
Alfred DesRochers
Poet
- Born: October 5, 1901
- Birthplace: Saint-Elie d'Orford, Quebec, Canada
- Died: October 12, 1978
Biography
Alfred DesRochers was born on October 5, 1901, to a farmer, Honorius, and his wife Zéphirine Marcotte DesRochers. He would become one of the most important writers to emerge from Quebec during the period between the world wars. The poetry for which he is best remembered, particularly the collection A l’ombre de l’Orford (in the shade of Orford) was inspired by his native village of Saint-Elie d’Orford, near Sherbrooke, in the scenic, rural eastern townships about 160 kilometers east of Montreal.
DesRochers’s formal education ended early when he was forced to abandon his classical education in his teens because of his father’s death. His imagination, though, had been piqued by stories of the rough men of his region: explorers, lumberjacks, and the coureurs de bois—fur traders taught the ways of the wilderness by native people. The future poet found work as a delivery boy, hardware store clerk, bush-worker, and foundry apprentice. These experiences too were reflected in his later poems, which, like those of the American poet Walt Whitman in the previous century, celebrated the lives of laboring people with sensitivity and respect. Unlike Whitman, though, DesRochers’s poetry uses more formal structures, juxtaposed with vernacular diction.
DesRochers married Rose-Alma Brault in 1925. This was the same year he began working at the Sherbrooke newspaper La Tribune, where he would remain for the next twenty-five years. He took brief absences from the paper during World War II, when he served as a private in the Canadian army, and then as a translator for the parliament in Ottowa.
This quarter-century had been especially productive. In addition to fathering six children, DesRochers wrote the early volumes of poetry generally considered his strongest works, L’Offrande aux vierges folles (offering to the foolish virgins) in 1928 and A l’ombre de l’Orford in 1929. He also published literary criticism, including one book, Paragraphes (1931), arranged imaginatively in the form of interviews with books—rather than authors—by several Quebec writers.
During this period, he became the leading light of a literary group, the Société des ecrivains d’Est (society of writers from the east) that drew in authors both local and from further afield; published several works of criticism in literary periodicals; maintained an extensive correspondence with other writers; and became a well- respected defender of traditional verse. Following his semiretirement in 1956, coming at the end of a three-year stint working as a translator with the Canadian Press in Montreal, Des Rochers published three more books of poetry, including a series of elegiac sonnets for his wife, who died in 1967.
By this time, his reputation as a poet had been well established. His earliest major award, the Prix David in 1932, was followed by the Prix Duvernay in 1967, an honorary doctorate from the University of Sherbrooke in 1976, and his naming as a Companion of the Order of Canada, one of the highest honors for a Canadian, in 1978, the year of his death. A mountain peak at Mont Orford, a spot he loved, is christened in his honor.