The Carpathians - University of British Columbia

Spirit of the Flesh
Audrey Poetker-Thiessen
standing all the night through Turnstone Press n.p.
Reviewed by Beth Janzen
In Audrey Poetker-Thiessen's first book of
poetry, i sing for my dead in german, the
speaker says:
christ christ
tell me the difference
gramma between the curse
& the prayer
Poetker-Thiessen's second collection of
poetry explores more fully the ambiguity
between curse and prayer, the dynamic
between the sacred and the profane, but
elevates the significance of the discussion
from the individual level to that of the
community. In standing all the night
through, the personal, sometimes confessional
speaker of the first collection is
replaced by a persona which takes on many
roles, some of them from within a revisioned
Mennonite heritage. The speaker
is "...the preacher / the daughter of menno /
the storyteller to grandfathers / the teacher
of old women" ("who is this coming from
the wilderness"). The speaker is elevated to
the status of prophet, without losing her
individual concerns or her physical presence.
The individual's spiritual and sexual
longing to be "found" is mirrored by the
community's physical and spiritual search
for "home". Poetker's collection seeks
simultaneously to blur, erase and bridge the
gap between the physical and the spiritual,
and succeeds stunningly.
Poetker-Thiessen's concern with the relationship
between the physical and the spiritual
is effectively announced in her
epigraph from the Song of Solomon which
also serves as the title for her mini-epic of
twenty-six parts entitled "who is this coming
from the wilderness". She invokes the
rich, sensual imagery of the Song of
Solomon in this poem and throughout the
collection. Both the Bible and the history of
the Mennonite people serve as a narrative
basis for Poetker-Thiessen's poetry. Just as
the speaker occupies many positions and
has many faces, "menno" occupies many
places. Is he Menno Simons, the early
leader of the Mennonites, or does he have
other more nebulous identities as well? The
persona tells us that he is "samurai",
"kamikaze pilot", "a tribe without samaritans
/ that devours its people", "a joyful
singer", "a red flower / blossoming from
grandmother's / black hat" ("who is this
coming from the wilderness"). Menno is
both a spiritual leader and the lover who
ultimately betrays the speaker. The blurring
of the role of spiritual redeemer and lover
reveals Poetker-Thiessen's interest in the
gender politics which come to the fore in
discussions of the interpretation of The
Song of Solomon. What is the significance
of woman's body in the Bible? How does her
body influence her relationship with God?
The blurring between the sacred and profane
is seen clearly in Poetker-Thiessen's
use of language. Harry Loewen comments
in "Leaving Home: Canadian Mennonite
Literature in the 1980s":
Some of [the new Mennonite writers]
seem to believe that a provocative language
and crass images are the only
means of changing their elders' attitude
toward art and literature....These writers
sometimes overstate their case and make
pronouncements rather than write good
literature.
In the case of standing all the night through
let there be no mistaking that the poet's use
of "slang" is not a gratuitous attempt to
shock, but an integral aspect of the work's
design in both theme and technique.
Through her control of rhythm and
cadence, she effectively combines the register
of the biblical language with that of the
"profane":
menno bruder you have held