Rina Lasnier

Playwright and Poet

  • Born: August 6, 1915
  • Birthplace: Saint-Grégoire-d'Iberville, Quebec, Canada
  • Died: May 9, 1997
  • Place of death: Saint-Jean-sur-le-Richelieu, Quebec, Canada

Biography

Rina Lasnier was born on August 6, 1915, in Saint- Grégoire d’Iberville, Quebec, Canada, the daughter of Moise and Laura Galipeau Lasnier. Her parents sent her to Palace Gate, a private secondary school in England, an unusual decision for a Quebecois family at that time. She returned to Quebec following her studies in England and attended the Collège Marguerite Bourgeoys and the University of Montreal, where she received degrees in French and English literature and library science. Her experience as a student in England influenced the direction of her poetic sensibilities by broadening the scope of her reading and making her virtually bilingual. She wrote some poems in English, although French was her primary language.

In the course of her prolific career, Lasnier published more than thirty volumes of verse. She is perhaps best known for her religious poetry and her love poetry. She became a member of the Académie Canadienne Française at its inception in 1945 and was the recipient of many literary awards, including the Prix David (1943 and 1974), the Prix Duvernay (1957), the Molson Prize (1971), the A. J. M. Smith Prize (1972), the Prix France- Canada (1973), the Lorne Pierce Medal (1974), and the Prix Edgar Poe (France, 1979). She also received an honorary degree from the University of Montreal (1977) and was a member of the Royal Society of Canada. In 1987, she was made a grand officer of the Order of Quebec.

Despite these awards, Lasnier’s work did not always meet with critical approval as it was rarely in accord with the style of the day. Ironically, at various points in her career she was criticized for writing both free verse, or vers libre, and for writing poems in established patterns of rhyme and meter. Her poetry was most uniformly praised for its graceful use of long rhythmic lines, a rich vocabulary, and compressed imagery. As a devout Catholic, spiritual concerns often took center stage in her poems, and even her secular love poems were pervaded by an acknowledgment of the relationships between human love and divine consciousness. Lasnier died in 1997. Her personal papers are collected at the Bibliothèque Nationale du Quebec in Montreal.