The Carpathians - University of British Columbia

us up daily at the point
of your prick before him
whom prostitutes foretold
who births himself of woman
& is pulled bloody every day
from bloody thighs messiah
of women emancipator
son of woman
The presence here of both Low German
and contemporary profanity in Poetker-
Thiessen's poetry suggest an interest in
"translating" metaphysical problems into a
"vernacular".
The answer to the metaphysical quest for
home can be found in the physical: the
speaker says, "my lover's thighs are two
straight roads / that lead only home"
("where the thistles grow & dandelions").
Likewise, the speaker in "who is this coming
from the wilderness" says to menno:
i would
fuck you dry
of your pilgrim song
& pour it out
on troubled waters
to smooth the way
for your children
to come home
i would come home too
Her reference to menno as "pilgrim" refers
back to her epigraph from Pilgrim's Progress
in which Atheist laughs at Christian for his
journey, and tells him he's likely to only
have "his travel" for his pains. On the
book's back cover, Victor Doerksen comments
that "[Poetker-Thiessen's]
Mennonites are men and women, more
sinning than sinned against, but on the
heavenly journey nonetheless."
Audrey Poetker-Thiessen's second collection
of poetry explores the space between
the "wilderness" and "home" the
"stranger" and the "lover". The mythology
she rewrites is not only the "unspoken
mythology" (back cover) of the Mennonite
community, but also the mythology of
Western Christianity and Western Canada,
as is illustrated in the poem about the first
woman and the first man and their naming
of the world which is the prairie world
("out of the earth"). This poetry, which
might be termed "ethnic" by some critics
because of its use of Mennonite history and
low german, beautifully addresses the concerns
of Poetker-Thiessen's particular identity
and community (see "here is abram
paetkau's place"), and is also accessible to a
wide audience through its concerns with
personal mythology and memory. (The
glossary at the back is helpful too.)
One hopes that conservative readers both
inside and outside of the Mennonite community
will put aside their predictable
shock at Poetker-Thiessen's fascinating
blend of "the language of men" ("who is
this coming from the wilderness") with the
language of the Bible and will explore her
subtle truths and paradoxes. Like the lover
who describes menno's lips as "cracked
open / sunflower seed / by my tongue..."
("& i want to hear menno"), the reader
must gently pry apart Poetker-Thiessen's
metaphors and motifs; the result is pleasurable
for both the flesh and the spirit.
Direction & Clarity
Russell Ferguson
Discourses: Conversations in Postmodern Art and
Culture. MIT $16.95
Andrew Parker, Mary Russo, Doris
Summer and Patricia Yaeger, eds.
Nationalisms and Sexualities. Routledge $19.95
Reviewed by Bernard Selinger
Many believe that post-modern thought
has provided little more than irresolution
and confusion. These two books, however,
suggest that post-modern thinking just
may be providing us with a fair amount of
direction and clarity.
Discourses is a fine collection of interviews
and discussions, all of which were