Speaking of Power: The Poetry of Di Brandt

by Di Brandt, Tanis MacDonald (Editor)

Speaking of The Poetry of Di Brandt introduces the reader to the lyric power and political urgency of the poetry of Di Brandt, providing an overview of her poetry written during a prolific and revolutionary twenty-year period. Beginning with her early poetic inquiries into the dynamics of gender, religion, and the politics of language, Brandt examines the use and abuse of power as a cultural issue, emphasizing cross-cultural and domestic relationships. Particularly engaged with questions of motherhood, the land, violence and reparation, feminism, and spirituality, Brandt explores ecopoetics, an ecology of poetry, as a possible antidote to the cultural despair of the twenty-first century. Editor Tanis MacDonald’s introduction outlines the major movements of Brandt’s work, emphasizing the relationship of language to power and the value of a dissenting voice in a forceful cultural poetics. An afterword by Brandt completes the volume.

Genres: Poetry, Canada

Paperback

First published April 1, 2006

About the author

Di Brandt’s poetry titles include questions i asked my mother (1987), Agnes in the sky (1990), Jerusalem, beloved (1995), and most recently, Now You Care (2004). She has received numerous awards for her poetry, including the CAA National Poetry Prize, the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award, and the Gerald Lampert Award. Di Brandt recently returned to the Manitoba prairies, her home, after a decade away, to take up a Canada Research Chair in Creative Writing at Brandon University.

Reviews

[M.W.P.M. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Speaking of Power: The Poetry of Di Brandt brings together a selection of poems from Questions I Asked My Mother , Agnes In The Sky , Mother, Not Mother: Poems , Jerusalem, Beloved , and Now You Care ...

From Questions I Asked My Mother ...

let me tell you what it's like
having God for a father & jesus
for a lover on this old mother
earth you who no longer know
the old story the part about the
Virgin being of course a myth
made up by Catholics for an easy
way out it's not that easy i can
tell you right off the old man
in his room demands bloody hard
work he with his rod & his hard
crooked staff well jesus he's different he's a good enough lay
it's just that he prefers miracles
to fishing & sometimes i get tired
waiting all day for his bit of
magic though late at night i burn
with his fire & the old mother
shudders & quakes under us when
God's not looking

- missionary position (1), pg. 5

From Agnes In The Sky ...

what i want is the shape of the story of the blood
jolting seasonally to & from the heart underneath
the small gestures of our hands the words spoken
& unspoken between us i want the huge narrative
of the river the curved cry of the land i want the
straight blowing of birch leaves in strong wind
the whistling of prairie grass your lit face in the
distance coming to meet me your arms hot like
August prairie sky all around me

- prairie hymn, pg. 12

From Mother, Not Mother: Poems ...

what de Englische
didn't understand:

that telling my story
didn't make me one of them.

that my fear of being silenced
isn't obsolete.

i came from far away,
& brought everything with me.

the body remembers being
beaten & tortured & killed.

i stole the language
of their kinds & queens,

but i didn't bow to it,
i didn't become a citizen.

how hard it is t tell a story
so it ca be heard.

how easily the reader climbs
on top of it,

pronouncing judgement,
the eternal optimism, tourist,

pointing fingers.

it wasn't about being Mennonite,
(or Indian or Jew).

it was about you, you.

how glad i am to be a human
being & not a Wasp.

is this about gender or isn't it?

oceans are dying & here we sit
discussing words.

the roaring in your ears,
the whale inside you: listen.

how much you wanted to cry
in the night bu couldn't.

how deeply the body carries
its violence, well hidden,

afraid of its own speaking.

say it slowly, each syllable,
out loud:

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH

how much you needed her,
through the centuries,

the here & now

what kind of reaching out,
what kind of holding,

what kind of touch between us,
listener:

between the hiss of consonants,
the inner wail, the heart

beating its old music, deep,
& hot, & unforgiving.

- what de Englische, pg. 18-20

From Jerusalem, Beloved ...

Jerusalem, the golden, city of my dreams,
dreaming, how i waited all my life for you,
to find you, resplendent, in the sun, your
white stones crying, with joy, Jerusalem,
beloved, lying in the Mediterranean sun,
filled with love, delirious with love, lift up
your heart & sing, my heart dancing, how i
longed for you, all my life, your streets
paved with gold, & children playing, your
diamond studded gates, your rooftops filled
with women, dancing, & flowers in their
hair, the tables laden, heavy, the air filled
with music, & feasting, my love, how i
longed for you, dreaming, my arms aching,
from the day of my birth, my birthgiving,
filled with pangs of hunger & remembering,
how i longed for you, my love, how long,
oh how long i waited for you

- Jerusalem, the golden, city of my dreams, pg. 30

From Now You Care ...

Not ungrateful for the attempt at proper
institutionalization, Mr. Vice President,
those twenty piece place settings inside
your wall, though it is you with your
head in the clouds, engineering our wild
minds with your long armed industrial
screws and custom made hard wired hat,
your poems locked in secret drawers,
invisible you thought, bu we have x-ray
eyes, all our night flying has made us
bold, here we come riding quantumly
through your armoured glass windows
on our multicoloured cyborged wings,
still bats, witches, goddesses, still unruly
mistresses of our, your, the world's pulsing
heart

- Not ungrateful for the attempt at proper, after Donna Haraway, pg. 45

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was most interested in her biography and the information about her early life. I liked the themes in her poetry especially around mothering. I found her style of poetry difficult for me to connect to - perhaps something to come back to.