Glossolalia, Marita Dachsel

Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman

His floods. His tornadoes.

Plagues. Drought.

Over nothing.

It’s never personal.

A cracked bowl. Torn pants.

Dropped food. Smeared shit.

Five crisp crescents

on a chubby thigh;

a taut hairbrush;

a smothering embrace;

a clumsy constellation

from rough diaper pins.

A mother has only

so much patience,

so much time

to clean & care,

for goodly work.

God knows.

I forgive

His outbursts

of destruction

& damage.

I understand

prayers ignored

cried out

in a cold night

needing to suckle,

desperate in faith.

In her second trade poetry collection, Glossolalia (Vancouver BC: Anvil Press, 2013), Victoria, British Columbia poet Marita Dachsel has composed a polyvocal work of poetry as “an unflinching exploration of sisterhood, motherhood, and sexuality as told in a series of poetic monologues spoken by the thirty-four polygamous wives of Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ ofLatter-day Saints.” Most poems written out of biographical/historical materials are painstakingly dull, doing little to add to what is already known, but Dachsel manages to bring a life to the material, a fine and sparkling energy, something she brought to her first collection, All Things Said & Done (Caitlin Press, 2007) [see my review of such here] as well. Akin to Robert Kroetsch’s chapbook-double The Lost Narrative of Mrs. David Thompson (Edited by Robert Kroetsch) / Ten Simple Questions for David Thompson (Recorded by Robert Kroetsch) (Windsor ON: Wrinkle Press, 2009) [see my piece on such here] and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005) [see my very brief review of such here], Dachsel’s Glossolalia features and focuses on a series of voices that are largely absent from what is already known, writing out fictions from the surrounding facts (or lack thereof) of the multiple wives of Joseph Smith.

I was 17, newly married

when I first put a woman to bed,

her new babe in arms.

Awaiting death, I’ve tallied,

attended 3977 births. Midwife,

my eminent title.

Pride is a sin,

but I think I will be forgiven

for the surge I feel

when I consider my record. (“Patti Bartlett Sessions”)

A few years ago, a selection of her work-in-progress was published in chapbook form by Trisia Eddy as Eliza Roxcy Snow (Edmonton AB: Red Nettle Press, 2009), a poem that survives revision to appear at the very end of the collection. The poem exists a series of unmarked photographs, a series of flashes and flickers in an odd kind of collage. But one single voice in what would become an array of voices, the back of the chapbook explained:

This is a work of fiction, inspired by the real Eliza Roxcy Snow, polygamous wife of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Church. It is by no means meant to be read as a biography of the woman. For factual information on her, I suggest reading In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith by Todd Compton.

The sharpest poems in the collection are the ones composed less narrative and far more pointed in their approach, including “Patty Bartlett Sessions,” “Delcena Diadamia Johnson Sherman” and “Flora Ann Woodworth.” Exploration of voice is something a couple of other Canadian poets have been working on over the past few years as well, including Stephen Brockwell and K.I. (Karen) Press, who also present commentary and social exploration in poetry through voices that are often silent. In Dachsel’s Glossolalia, the exploration of multiple voices is echoed through the composition of individual pieces as well, as each voice utilizes a different compositional style, from the lyric of “Ruth Daggett Vose Sayers,” to the point form of “Almera Woodward Johnson” to the erasure of “Lucy Walker,” that includes:

When at length we were forced to believe she would not speak to us again we were in the depths of despair. Ten motherless children! & such a young mother! The youngest not yet two years old. The Prophet came to the rescue. He said, if you remain here Brother Walker, you will soon follow your wife. You must have a change of scene, a change of climate. You have just such a family as I could love. My house shall be their home. For the present, I would advise you to sell your effects, place the little ones with kind friends, & the four eldest shall come to my house & be received & treated as my own children, & if I find the little ones are not content, or not treated right, I will bring them home & keep them     thought     of being broken up as a family, & being separated from the little ones. However my father sought to comfort us by saying two years would soon pass by when with renewed health he hoped to return & make us a home where we might be together again. The tears rained down our faces all the while we were with them   the people often said they wished we would calm ourselves in their presence or not come to see them as it made them discontented.

Writing through sisterhood, motherhood and sexuality, the work can’t help but become a portrait (whether fictional or otherwise) of Joseph Smith himself. And what kind of portrait has Dachsel painted? The portrait appears largely obsessive, abusive and insular, a religious zealotry that can do little but damage the women around him. What is interesting is in how Dachsel’s poems focus on the individuals, working to give each of them voice, but delves little into the situation they shared, that of the plural marriage itself. Instead, the point of the collection is to hear from the women as individuals, through their own stories of childbirth, heartbreaks, jealousies and other experiences. As Dachsel writes to open the piece, “Rhoda Richards”:

            My heart lives in this box.

            Open it.

Ongoing notes: early June, 2012

How does it get to June, already? It’s been a frenzied period of activity, with Christine’s launch recently in Toronto as part of the big spring BookThug event (she launches in Ottawa as part of The TREE Reading Series). And of course, our recent jaunts to New Orleans and the Niagara Region. All of this meant that we had to leave our Lemonade, lovingly cat-sat by Carmel Purkis (who took a series of photos, including this one, to appease us on our journeyings).

Stephen Brockwell is running a sizzling hot poetry workshop in Ottawa, coming up. And have you noticed the flurry of recent above/ground press activity lately? Also, this month includes a reading Christine McNair and I do together in St. Catharine’s,Ontario on Friday, June 15, the day before we sit with plenty of above/ground and Chaudiere titles (as well plenty of my own, and her new BookThug trade book) at a book fair, there, all part of the Niagara Literary Arts Festival. We both also read as part of a big event to closeoff a year-long “Call and Response” project over at the School of Photographic Arts on June 22, the day after our infamous SOCIAL, pre-wedding fun/draiser (you should really come by for this, it looks spectacular). And don’t forget,the end of the month has the semi-annual ottawa small press book fair, which I’ve been running twice a year since 1994, if you can believe it.

I don’t think I’m going to want to do anything else, once July finally comes.

Edmonton AB: I’m fascinated by the items Trisia Eddy has been producing on her recently-procured letterpress, a device previously owned by such worthy writers and producers as Elizabeth Bachinsky and Anik See (I’ve long been tempted to write a profile piece on the device itself, listing the range of publications produced upon it over the years by these three). In an edition of less than fifty copies, each bolted to a piece of reclaimed wood “treated with natural tung oil in the spring sun,” is ryan fitzpatrick’s 21^st Century Monsters (Edmonton AB: Red Nettle Press, 2012). I’m intrigued in fitzpatrick’s movement into sentences, composing poems-as-prose much in the manner of other Canadian such as, say, Nicole Markotić, Jonathan Ball, Lisa Robertson and Jason Christie. There is something about the sentence, one might say. Each of these nine short poems read like short essays-in-couplets, nearly ghazal-like in the spaces left between. I am taken by the sparseness, the terseness, the broad strokes. There is much happening here, much more than he might even wish to let on.

SNOWFLAKE CHILDREN

Using this technique, two children can be

separated at birth without any emotions.

So why does the allegory survive while the

soulless creep is still walking the streets?

Near the tops of the trees, you can nearly

make out with the ice crystals in the branches.

Some might object to a woman carrying a

mystery child, but we need the freezer space.

So she knew about the safe haven, but would

rather shoot herself right in the stomach.

Generally, we find it is beneficial to the state

to allow individuals to disassemble themselves.

When I reach a finality near the ground will I

lose some of the individual momentum I’ve gained.

Some print outlets might bury ice storms deep

on the weather page choosing to focus differently.

These are striking and radical portraits of shot

leaders defying a Jacobin sense of liberty.

During the past decade, WalMart has begun to

profitably sell do-it-yourself exorcism kits.

Republicanism emerges as a nostalgic quest for

a return to the feudal times of purest liberty.

He was highly ethical in salvaging the tinkering

spirit of the wacky antics of embryonic cells.

Switzerland: After years of small-edition chapbooks comes HERSO, An Heirship in Waves (Black Radish Books, 2011), Dusie founder/editor/publisher Susana Gardner's second trade poetry collection. Constructed in seven sections, HERSO is a wild play, a language mix that comes apart in places, but is wild and evocative throughout. Gardner is exploring form, working around to see what fits, and just how far she can go, writing puns, sweeps and sound-parcels that accumulate into something much stronger than the sum of its parts. Gardner is an American poet who moved to Europe and founded dusie to keep a conversation going with those she left back at home. She feels very much like a poet at the near-beginning of a long path of intriguing formal exploration, a path I look forward to seeing further.

it is always the same coastline –

with its unsteady

grayed forecast – coastline

carried   and   kept

changeless     as the

sea is   forward and

same – thus

descending   as the

sea must seemingly descend

as in its coastal carriage –

each wave wearily catching and

crashing into the next –

a hatching – a harmony or honing

(if you will) of this we   this coast

this I – long abandoned – a nest

or home ever as even   as it is just –

only ever built in anticipation of

its eventual   unraveling   of   each

moment in its remaking – a simple moment

a cunning moment   thus defined

as the road is steep   this road is blind

and never ending of   sea same

sea   sane         sea   erratic

12 or 20 questions: with Mary Pinkoski

[photo credit to Randall Edwards] Mary Pinkoski is a spoken word poet from Edmonton and the winner of the 2008 National CBC Poetry Faceoff. Her writing has been called dynamic and visceral. Mary has presented her unique style of spoken word both nationally and internationally. In addition to her live performances, Mary's work has been played on CBC Radio One's Radio Active and the Key of A, as well as Philadelphia's Spotlight on Jazz and Poetry. Mary's first chapbook, Set List: poems for lonely microphones, was published by red nettle press.

1 - How did your first chapbook change your life? How does your most recent work compare to your previous? How does it feel different?

With my first chapbook, I moved from doing, almost exclusively, performance poetry into a written form. On the one hand, having my work in print form seemed validate it in some sense; however, on the other hand, it also presented my work in a new and somewhat unfamiliar format. This, I think, allowed me to consider other possibilities for my writing. Therefore, my most recent work now often explores the tension and the potential negotiations/possibilities between performance poetry and ‘for-the-page’ poetry.

2 - How did you come to poetry first, as opposed to, say, fiction or non-fiction?

My friend told me to answer this question, with one word: Proust. However, I don’t trust myself to a brevity (or understanding of Proust) like this.

Poetry has always come easiest to me. My thoughts come in patchwork segments that seem to best fit into poems. I always seem to have trouble holding a narrative line for more than a few pages, which does not lend itself readily to fiction.

Unfortunately - or perhaps fortunately – because I have had a relatively long academic career and now work in communications, non-fiction writing seems too much like work or something that needs to be graded for me to engage in it with any amount of seriousness.

3 - How long does it take to start any particular writing project? Does your writing initially come quickly, or is it a slow process? Do first drafts appear looking close to their final shape, or does your work come out of copious notes?

A poem sits in my head for an indeterminate amount of time. Lines get worked around and tossed around in that space for a long time before they ever hit the page. I think that I use this mental space to get used to a line, to become familiar with it, and to gain a confidence in my ideas. (This notion of ‘thinking my poem,’ I believe, keeps me from taking notes.) After this, my poems come out on the page often close to their final shape. However, revision still occurs.

4 - Where does a poem usually begin for you? Are you an author of short pieces that end up combining into a larger project, or are you working on a "book" from the very beginning?

Every poem begins with an idea.

I think that because so much of my poetry is written as spoken word, writing for a larger project or with the idea of working on book seems foreign to me. Nevertheless, what I sometimes do have in mind when I work on poems is how they will fit into a larger performance set.

5 - Are public readings part of or counter to your creative process? Are you the sort of writer who enjoys doing readings?

Public readings are integral to the majority of the poems I write. When I work in a spoken word genre, I am always considering the public performance as the end result. I write with the intention of performing. That being said, I am the polar opposite when I write ‘for-the-page’ poetry. The idea of public readings seems counter to what I am doing. Recently, I wrote a poem a day for National Poetry Month and was posting them unedited on my blog. Even this public display was almost too much for me.

Despite readings being integral to most of my poems, I don’t really enjoy readings (or poetry slams, which I often do). I am inherently introverted and every time I read it takes a huge leap in personality to put myself in front of people, but I continue to do it because I believe it is important.

6 - Do you have any theoretical concerns behind your writing? What kinds of questions are you trying to answer with your work? What do you even think the current questions are?

The broadest theoretical concern behind my writing, which I deal with, is accessibility. I want my poetry to be accessible. I try to work in realms that are easily understood, which means my poetry often shifts towards personal narrative.

Further, because my poetry is often intensely personal, I find myself trying to negotiate the relationship between narrating the personal, but also making it universal.

7 – What do you see the current role of the writer being in larger culture? Does s/he even have one? What do you think the role of the writer should be?

I want to move away from the idea of ‘a larger culture’ in my answer to this question. I think that we move within ‘cultures’ and writers have roles within in these. I think the biggest role of a writer is meaning-maker. A writer contributes to create another layer of meaning to a culture, a layer that is both crucial and diverse in its presentation. I think that this is important because it moves people through levels of understanding. For instance, to use an example, at the inauguration of Barack Obama having poet Elizabeth Alexander read and hearing Aretha Franklin sing and the quartet of Yo-Yo Ma, Itzhak Perlman, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill play added a different layers of meaning to the event which may not have existed without their respective performances. I don’t think writers are meant to change the world, but I think they can explain it in a way that may help others to change it.

8 - Do you find the process of working with an outside editor difficult or essential (or both)?

Writing is mostly done in isolation for me – a lonely affair - so when I get the opportunity to have my work examined by an outside source, I find it relieving. I enjoy the process because it helps to not only make my writing better, but it also makes it something new.

9 - What is the best piece of advice you've heard (not necessarily given to you directly)?

To leave a light on in the house at night, so you will know if the power has gone out//Keep a quarter (Aspirin) between your knees, so a boy won’t go too far with you//Wear clean underwear, in case of a car accident//When soaking seeds over night for planting, don’t plant the ones that float to the top.

Or, it was once said to me that I should never doubt my words and their power; to believe in them with an unrelenting passion.

Also, I read an interview once in the Guardian called ‘Why I Write’ with Markus Zusak, author of The Book Thief, and he was asked what makes him write. To this he answered: “To me the question is always this: if a ray of light came out of the sky and said, "Your next book will never be published - would you still write it?" If the answer is yes, the book is worth writing.” This is a concept I like to employ.

10 - How easy has it been for you to shift between forms, from page to more performative works? What do you see as the appeal?

I find the shift between forms tricky, if I think consciously about it. However, I often find that different poems lend themselves more readily to one form or the other. For me, the less personally intimate the poem – and the more universal the images – the easier it is to perform it.

The appeal of shifting back and forth between forms lies in the opportunity it allows me to play with and challenge definitions of poetry, as well as stretching me, personally, as a writer.

11 - What kind of writing routine do you tend to keep, or do you even have one? How does a typical day (for you) begin?

I stray from routine. I am a poor committer. However, I have just recently come to realize the potential and the benefits of routine when I was doing my poem of the day. Yet, my writing still exists around other things.

12 - When your writing gets stalled, where do you turn or return for (for lack of a better word) inspiration?

I turn to the world; to music; to movies; to television; to other poets; to a stolen phrase captured from a conversation; to a place in my mind/heart that I don’t want to go; to love.

13 - What do you really want?

Wow! Well, to answer in list:

1. As Sandra Bullock phrased it so eloquently in Miss Congeniality, I would like: “harsher punishment for parole violators [...] and world peace.”

2. A pony.

3. A hamburger phone.

4. Love.

5. and...world peace.

14 - David W. McFadden once said that books come from books, but are there any other forms that influence your work, whether nature, music, science or visual art?

I think everything influences my work. My work breathes personal experience and I don’t/cannot exist outside of everything that I am exposed to, neither does my work.

15 - What other writers or writings are important for your work, or simply your life outside of your work?

This, changes daily. I am always being influenced by what I read. However there have been a few steady influences in my writing from writers who have encouraged me and inspired me through their own works.

The constant support and mentoring from Edmonton novelist Thomas Trofimuk has been instrumental in my continued development as a writer. His patience and encouragement has often propelled me forward as a writer.

Toronto-based writer Zoe Whittall’s encouragement many years ago is what first made me believe that I could be a writer, and ignited the possibility that I could actually see myself as a writer. Zoe’s writing continues to inspire me.

Finally my work as a performance poet has been encouraged by many including Calgary poet Sheri-D Wilson and Edmonton poet TL Cowan. Also American spoken word/slam poet Jack McCarthy has been fundamental in helping me believe in my work and the need to showcase it.
I feel very blessed to be surrounded by these mentors.

16 - What would you like to do that you haven't yet done?

Accomplish world domination peace. Own a pony. Talk on a hamburger phone. Or work seriously on a manuscript that is suitable for publication.

17 - If you could pick any other occupation to attempt, what would it be? Or, alternately, what do you think you would have ended up doing had you not been a writer?

Is day dreamer an occupation? I would like to try that.

If I didn’t work in communications during the day, I would love to devote myself full-time to writing. And, if devoting myself full-time to writing was not feasible, I would like to work as an historical interpreter at a museum, which basically brings us full circle back to being a day dreamer.

18 - What made you write, as opposed to doing something else?

Writing came naturally to me. I am terrible at math – which eliminates all the sciences – and I have a poor sense of rhythm, so music and dancing were out when I turned to the arts, and drawing was feasible. Once I thought I might be a pool shark or backroom gambler, but I never seem to have the spare change to get very far in this regard.

I see writing as an extension of how I communicate. It is as much as necessity as talking. It seems inherently part of me and what I was meant to do. Of course, I have had some fantastic encouragement along the way which has propelled me forward (and makes the task easier).

19 - What was the last great book you read? What was the last great film?

I have been touting The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, as the last great book I have read. I recommend it to everyone and force it onto those who I care deeply about.

I tend to navigate to the old films when I look for greatness. I recently re-watched Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, which I love for its optimism and its use of the word ‘filibuster.’

20 - What are you currently working on?

I am working on a number of projects. Most immediately, I am working on a second chapbook of spoken work poems. I am toying with the idea of creating a spoken word CD. I am also working seriously on preparing a manuscript of ‘for-the-page’ poetry.

I have 2 incomplete novels kicking around, but I don’t give them the attention they deserve.

12 or 20 questions archive (second series);

Ongoing notes: early June, 2009

[Lainna reading an issue of Poetry] Here’s hoping you can make it to the spring edition of the ottawa small press book fair, happening June 20th at the Jack Purcell Community Centre; there’s even the pre-fair reading by five writers (McArthur, Sze, Anstee, Fuhr + Fiorentino) happening the night before at the Carleton Tavern, Parkdale Market. And watch out for the sixteenth anniversary above/ground press reading/launch/party, with readings and new publications by Roland Prevost, Lainna Lane El Jabi and Phil Hall (and perhaps more), at the Ottawa Art Gallery on Thursday, August 13 at 7pm. Or then, of course, the Talonlaunches I'm part of this week in Calgary (Tuesday, Pages on Kensington) and Vancouver (Wednesday, Anza Club). Will I see you at any of these? Check out, too, an interview I just did with Vancouver poet Elizabeth Bachinsky.

Edmonton AB: Former Vancouver and current Edmonton resident, the poet Marita Dachsel has published sparingly over the past decade and a half, whether a chapbook with above/ground press back in 1996 or a trade poetry collection but a couple of years back, so a new poetry chapbook from Trisia Eddy’s Red Nettle Press is something to pay attention to, her Eliza Roxcy Snow (2009).

I will never feel the ache
of filling breasts
heavy for release
or the need to hide my blouse
blooming with stain,

but do not be mistaken.

I know the urgent suckle
of a needy mouth.

Eliza Roxcy Snow is a series of unmarked photographs, a series of flashes, of flickers; an odd kind of collage work that isn’t really explained, and moves, fluid, from page to page. As the back of the small collection explains:

This is a work of fiction, inspired by the real Eliza Roxcy Snow, polygamous wife of Joseph Smith, founder of the Latter Day Saints (Mormon) Church. It is by no means meant to be read as a biography of the woman. For factual information on her, I suggest reading In Sacred Loneliness: The Plural Wives of Joseph Smith by Todd Compton.

The connections are made and the narratives created by the reader. A break from her first collection of poems, this works far less of a narrative but threads nonetheless.

There are many versions of the story,
& you should be wise enough to know
that truth is filtered through tongues.

Calgary AB: I’m liking this new publication derek beaulieu is working through his No Press, speechless 1, “dedicated to the dissemination and discussion of visual and concrete poetry.” beaulieu has long been a proponent of the form, through his own work as a writer, critic, editor and publisher, including his own essay on such in his title with Talonbooks, his work with filling Station magazine, and perhaps bringing the form into Canadian literary journals the past few years in a way that hasn’t been seen since the small press explosion of the 1960s and 70s, with his own work appearing in journals that traditionally don’t publish such work. The first issue is a lovely production (just like all of his other No Press publications), featuring the work of Eva Gonzalez, Rachelle Pinnow, Helen Hajnoczky and Mary Ellen Solt, including the essay “Writing the Concrete Body: Cixous, Solt, and the Feminist Potential of Concrete Poetics” by Hajnocsky. I wonder if she has written about Vancouver visual/concrete poet Judith Copithorne? He says that submissions are welcome, c/o #2, 733-2nd Avenue NW, Calgary AB T2N 0E4.