en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speak_White
1 correction found
The expression inspired Quebec poet Michèle Lalonde to write the committed poem Speak White in October 1968.
This date is wrong: sources quoting Michèle Lalonde say she wrote *Speak White* in May 1968, not October 1968.
Full reasoning
Multiple scholarly sources place the poem’s composition in May 1968.
- A 2022 Études françaises article quotes Lalonde directly from a 1974 interview: "J’ai écrit ‘Speak White’ en mai 1968… toute une nuit" and adds that Michelle Rossignol performed it the next day, 27 May 1968.
- A Virginia Tech thesis discussing the poem cites the same interview and repeats that Lalonde said she wrote it in May 1968.
- Sean Mills’s research on 1960s Montreal likewise describes Lalonde as composing the poem in one long night in May 1968 for the Vallières-Gagnon benefit.
So the article’s specific claim that Lalonde wrote the poem in October 1968 contradicts sources that quote the author herself and place the writing in May 1968.
3 sources
- Études françaises article (2022) citing Michèle Lalonde’s 1974 interview
« J’ai écrit “Speak White” en mai 1968… toute une nuit. Je suis arrivée avec le texte tout chaud comme ça à la générale du spectacle… Le lendemain, 27 mai, elle le donnait ».
- L’impérialisme linguistique au Québec des années 1965-1975 : Analyses littéraires de Speak White (Virginia Tech thesis)
La réponse de Lalonde concernant le but de son poème y est révélée ainsi : « J’ai écrit Speak White en mai 1968… toute une nuit. »
- The Empire Within: Montreal, the Sixties, and the Forging of a Radical
Writing just after the release of Vallières book, and composing the entire poem in one long night in the month of May 1968, Lalonde was writing with the belief that...