Mission Work: Poems – A Prize-Winning Debut from Childhood Among the Kuman People of Papua New Guinea

by Aaron Baker, Stanley Plumly (Foreword)

In this prize-winning collection, a debut poet evokes his childhood as the son of missionaries in Papua New Guinea.

Mission Work is an arresting collection of poems based on Aaron Baker’s experiences as a child of missionaries living among the Kuman people in the remote Chimbu Highlands of Papua New Guinea. Rich with Christian and Kuman myths and stories, the poems explore Western and tribal ways of looking at the world -- an interface of vastly different cultures and notions of spirituality, illuminated by the poet’s own struggles as he comes of age in this unique environment.

The images conjured in Mission Work are viscerally stirring: native people slaughter pigs for a Chimbu wedding ceremony; a papery flight of cicadas cuts through a cloud forest; hands sting as they beat a drum made of dried snakeskin. Quieter moments are shot through with the unfamiliar as well. In “Bird of Paradise,” a father angles his son’s head toward the canopy of the jungle so the boy can catch sight of an elusive bird.

Stanley Plumly, this year’s guest judge, writes, “How rare to find precision and immersion so alive in the same poetry. Aaron Baker's pressure on his language not only intensifies and elevates his memories of Papuan 'mission work,' it transforms it back into something very like his original childhood experience. Throughout this remarkably written and felt first book, the reader, like the author himself, ‘can’t tell if this is white or black magic,’ Christian, tribal, or both at once.”

Genres: Poetry

80 pages, Paperback

First published March 18, 2008

Reviews

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fantastic collection about a child caught in the in-between: between missionary parents and local life; between homes; between past, present, and future.

[Kevin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let's face it--no one gets a 'five' unless you're dead or Shakespeare. But this book should rank. American poetry sees a lot of personal narrative/memoir material--but how many backyard memoirists grew up in Papua New Guinea with missionary parents? For uniqueness of perspective alone the book has merits--for depth of thought and line, it earns the rest of that notice. An apology for the ways these divergent worldviews interact is improbable and unnecessary--the speaker inhabits the gap of the cultural faultlines, wide-eyed-as-a-middle-child, speaks for his own experience. And we hear more harmony than one might expect. My favorite poem for articulating these complexities: "Albino." Check it out.

[Kim · Rating 5 out of 5]

A reread of this hypnotic collection which moves me just as it did on first read 5 years ago. The jungle images are vibrant and vivid, even if cryptically bloody sometimes. We get more lyric than narrative here. This is one of those voices that’s striving for a sort of Biblical, apocalyptic tone, and it’s really working well.

[Maughn Gregory · Rating 5 out of 5]

Remarkable.