Johanna Skibsrud, MEDIUM

 

“LET THEM SLICE OFF OUR HEADS”

“Let them slice off our heads in the desert,” I whispered.
“Let our eyes roll up toward the heavens; let our bodies
turn to dust and be blown in four directions from our
bones.”

I packed two sandwiches and an extra pair of stockings—
took my brother along.

When my uncle found us in the marketplace and
delivered us back home, my mother shook her fist,
then knelt and sobbed into her sleeve.

We tend to imagine our lives as though they are in
themselves a limit rather than a tool or simple accessory,
like a knocker on a door.

I used to weep over the passion until my head ached and I
could no longer see.

My father’s father was a Jew, condemned; my mother
desired nothing more than to lead a quiet, Christian life.

I hear loud noises in my head, which make it hard to
write this down.

The latest from Johanna Skibsrud [see her 2009 ’12 or 20 questions’ interview here], a writer who “divides her time between Tucson, Arizona, and Cape Breton, Nova Scotia” is the poetry collection MEDIUM (Toronto ON: Book*hug Press, 2024), a collection that “shares the lives and perspectives of women who – in their roles as biological, physical, or spiritual mediums – have helped to shape the course of history.” The author of three previous collections of poetry, three novels and three non-fiction titles, as she writes to open her “PREFACE”: “This project began a decade ago, while I was pregnant with my first child. I kept thinking during that time, and afterward—through those first all-consuming years of parenthood, two miscarriages, and the birth of my second child—about the ways in which women have served as mediums throughout history, and of the ways they continue to serve. I thought of and looked again for guidance from the powerful women whose bodies, minds, and spirits have acted as conduits of knowledge and intuition; as points of convergence for the past, present, and the future; as concrete points of channeling and accessing a way forward—or sideways, or otherwise.”

The poems that make up MEDIUM are carved and constructed in a kind of layering, providing different elements across a book-length project almost as a polyphonic call-and-response. Skibsrub’s lyrics and asides offer a multitude of voices, structures and perspectives, from Helen of Troy to Anne Boleyn, Marie Curie to Roe vs. Wade, and Shakuntala Devi to Hypatia of Alexandria. The effect is almost choral, offering threads on and around multiple figures vilified across history, reclaiming the stories, purpose and legacies of an array of historical women. “We don’t know either Julian of Norwich’s real name or / what her life was like before she recorded her Revelations / of Divine Love—the first known book to be written by a / woman in the English language,” Skibsrud writes, “in the 14^th century. Some / suspect she was a mother before taking her vows, and that / during the plague years she may have lost one or more chil- / dren.” Skibsrud writes akin to an anthology that leans into theatrical script, as different characters, including the narrator, take their turns in the spotlight. As the poem “SOMETIMES, I TELL MY DAUGHTER, / YOU MAY FEEL” begins:

“Sometimes,” I tell my daughter, “you may feel
one thing so strongly it seems it’s the only true thing.”

“But then the feeling splits into two, and you find
there are other true things.”

She holds onto my hand and doesn’t look up.

“It’s also possible, of course, to feel more than one thing.
Or for a single feeling to break down steadily into other
feelings over time.”

She begins to cry. There’s nothing more I can do. There
are, after all, only a very few hours in the day; they, at
least, do not divide endlessly.

I turn. She reaches after —.

There is a curious call-and-response element Skibsrud that employs in her book-length structure, offering poems with the occasional aside, akin to Greek chorus, providing further information and foundation to what it is she is slowly building. The narratives and legacies that Skibsrud weaves together alongside those of her (presumably) own first-person domestic considerations, including conversations with her daughter, utilize language to offer both warning and study, seeking to provide perspectives on histories lost or set aside, and what lessons might be garnered from those stories. The effect of becoming a mother to a young daughter, as Skibsrud, through both preface and the poems themselves suggest, push through a further examination of the legacies of women, and how too often those with something to offer have been ignored, pushed aside or silenced. I wonder if Skibsrud is aware of Gale Marie Thompson’s remarkable Helen Or My Hunger (Portland OR: YesYes Books, 2020) [see my review of such here], which focuses a book-length lyric gaze around Helen of Troy? Skibsrud’s aside to introduce the poem “LET THEM SLICE OFF OUR HEADS” reads:

Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582) was a Spanish mystic, writer, religious reformer, and spiritual guide. Her paternal grandfather had been a marrano, or converted Jew, at one point condemned by the Inquisition for returning to his Jewish faith. But Teresa was born a Christian and a noblewoman—her father having purchased a knighthood after securing success in the wool trade. Teresa was introduced to mystic writings and romance novels by her mother and, as a child, dreamed of running away to North Africa in order to martyr herself there. At the age of twenty, she entered a convent and, after struggling with doubt, achieved the powerful connection with God she desired. Her fellow nuns were sometimes obliged to sit on her, or tie her down, in order to keep her ecstatic and sometimes painful visions from quite literally carrying her away.