"We asked ourselves, how do you commemorate a person? By showing his face? Not very Zen. By writing his name? That's meaningless to someone who doesn't already know him. With a quotation? A quotation always betrays the original work, to some extent. While pondering the question, I remembered that Gérald Godin sometimes wrote his poems on the side of his house in the carré Saint-Louis. That convinced us to include one of his poems into our work."

-Richard Purdy

(Info STM, Les artistes du métro de Montréal: Richard Purdy, Métro, 13 octobre 2004, p. 9)

The choice of poem was not without controversy, but the poem was the right length, and made reference to the metro, to commerce (representing av. Mont-Royal), to the residents of the area, and to religion (represented by the adjacent monastery). The choice was approved by a committee which included the poet's widow, Pauline Julien.