ultimately spend less and less time interacting with his family – Joseph's sexual abuse continued for years after. The family moved north to the suburb of Laval when Vivier was nine or ten, and frequently migrated from house to house as they continued to struggle financially. These near-constant moves depressed Vivier as he became evermore lonely, "I remember when I was a child and we moved house – I went around the streets looking for friends, but came back to the house with my head down, still with no friends." Adolescence At the age of thirteen, Vivier's parents enrolled him in boarding schools run by the Frères Maristae, a French Catholic organisation that prepared young men for a vocation in the priesthood. Vivier recalled poetry being his favourite course, being especially fascinated with the works of Arthur Rimbaud and Émile Nelligan. He also developed a strong interest in linguistics and historical literature, studying the mechanics of ancient Greek and Latin, which would later prove influential for his . His relatively high grades let him rise to the ranks of church postulant, and he began to develop a group of friends with similar interests. His grades were ranked the highest in a class of thirty-four at the Juvénat Supérieur Saint-Joseph, with a two-year average exam mark of eighty percent. Vivier's first documented poems, including Noël and the dada-inspired Not' petit bonheur (1965), date from this period. Vivier discovered he was gay while attending classes and experiencing what he called "" towards his fellow male classmates. In 1966, at age of eighteen, he had come out to his friends and family, during a time when homosexual acts were still illegal and heavily frowned upon in Canada. He was subsequently expelled from the novitiate of Saint-Hyacinthe halfway through the school year; the reason given by the Frères Maristae being his "inappropriate behaviour" and a "lack of maturity", but it is generally accepted by music historians that Christian intolerance towards homosexuality was the legitimate reason. Vivier reportedly sobbed for hours after receiving the expulsion notice, believing his time with the Frères Maristae was the only time he was ever truly happy. He would, however, make no attempt to hide his sexuality from then onward. First musical education Vivier's first exposure to music was singing hymns in the family's church during mass; he would later recall an experience in a midnight Mass on Christmas Eve