Scientific Marvel: Poems

by Chimwemwe Undi

Marked by rhythmic drive, humour, and surprise, Undi’s poems consider what is left out from the history and ongoing realities of Winnipeg, Manitoba. Firmly grounded in the local, the arresting poems in Chimwemwe Undi’s debut collection, Scientific Marvel , are preoccupied with Winnipeg in the way a Winnipegger is preoccupied with Winnipeg, the way a poet might be preoccupied with through history and immigration; race and gender; anxieties and observation. Marked by rhythmic drive, humour and surprise, Undi’s poems consider what is left out from the history and ongoing realities of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the west. Taking its title from a beauty school in downtown Winnipeg that closed in 2017 after nearly 100 years of operation, Scientific Marvel approaches the prairies from the point of view of a person who is often erased from the prairies’ idea of itself. “I mean my country the way / my country means my country / and what else is there to say? / I am bad and brown / and trying. Nothing here / belongs to me or could / or ever will.” This is poetry that touches on challenging topics―from queerness and colonialism to racism, climate rage, and decolonization, while never straying far from specific lived experience, the so-called ‘smaller’ about self, art, dance parties and pop culture, relationships and love.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

96 pages, Paperback

Published April 2, 2024

Reviews

[Samuel Plato]

Probably the first time I've finished reading poetry, not understanding some of it, and wanting to come back.

[Dr. Devine]

I love it when a poet can balance the personal and the political in a collection.

No wonder this won a GG.

[Anne Farrer]

Liked this one a lot. Personal and powerful. Weighty stuff handled gracefully.

[Chels Patterson]

Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi

Is marvellous!

What else is to expect from the poet laureate of Winnipeg for 2023 & 2024. Her voice is unique and complicated. I cannot boost to say I understood all the poems or the depth of the prose. But I found them memorizing and addictive to read.

I partially liked the artistry of blacking out legal texts to clear them and add deeper meaning to these dry but incredibly consequential writings. Undi also builds on other poet’s work or uses interesting jumping off points of the mundane. Partially focusing on what a poem is or how we use language and what we are really saying when we pick one word or phrasing over another.

This book is for anyone who enjoys poetry and Canadian voices.

[A]

3.5/5 ⭐

A fantastic collection of poems from the Winnipeg poet Undi! I especially loved the blackout poems which I have seen done a lot in collage and mixed media arts but never in a poetry book. I also loved how the author used legal texts and transformed them into something of beauty. Can't wait to read future stuff from this author!

[Nathalie Kati]

My favourite quotes from Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi:

I am advised that an example of violence is not violence, like a photograph in a museum, transformed by the lens and then by display.

I keep achieving recognition when I aim for the divine.

There is a space where I echo, and I find it, and I fill it like the fog. It works, all the reaching, all the thirst, the blue.
I grow, like fruit does: slow and toward sweetness, softening until we rot.

I could remain available to myself.


My favourite poems from Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi:

4 - Escapology
26 - Self-Portrait With Track Changes
28 - The Rhythm Method
31 - Auto-Epithalamium *
38 - Byline Cento
40 - Saturn Approaching
42 - Assemblage
44 - Epithalamium Ending in Death
52 - Spacecraft
62 - Phone Home *
63 - Search History
67 - Sentencing Factors
77 - Sorry Cento

[Nancy]

I have been lucky to be in the same writing workshop with Chim for several years now, and ordered this book as soon as I knew it existed. That is, I come to this book with already-admiration for the way Chim thinks and writes; and these poems on the page are like the party at the lake I have been hearing about and now here I am. I had a hunch I'd be breathless.

Especially the epithalamiums, the song birds, the ice, the cold, omg "The Configuration" !!! ("it's just that they are"), the passive voice Cento, and all that is not blacked out. The bare solemnity, graceful moves, and eye to eye intimacy throughout.

[Cat Abenstein]

Scientific Marvel by Chimwemwe Undi is a stunning and timely collection of poems. It sings with heart, speaks truth, and sprawls on the page with a fierce tenderness, sharp insights, and clever specificity. The words this collection says and doesn't say (in the blacked out poems) will roll around my mind for a long time. I highly recommend you share time with these poems. Maybe over coffee in borrowed morning moments like I did.

[Kathy Stinson]

I was prompted to read this book by an interview with the poet in Prairie Fire which I very much enjoyed. The poems I liked best were What Birds Were (heartbreaking), Byline Cento (on passive voice), Field Guide to the Birds of North America and Configuration (seems I relate most to what Chimwemwe Undi says about and with birds).

[Christian]

Great collection. Didn't quite resonate with everything, but Linking Rings, Configuration, most if not all of the Supreme Court Case blackouts, and especially Epithalamium Ending in Death were standouts for me.

[Sophie Crocker]

chim is so good!!! everyone read this

[Aline-Mwezi Niyonsenga]

I ate these poems up, felt 'Comprehensive Ranking System' and 'Property 101', among others, in my bones

[Ariana van Dyck]

Brilliant

[Michael]

My interview with Undi discussing the book here:
https://umfm.com/programming/broadcas...

[DW]

I enjoyed the poem 'Girls Who'.

[Mira]

Incredibly special read, I shared almost every poem with another, connecting over the prose and smiling together. I absolutely adored experiencing poems directly about my home, West Broadway ❤️