drawing down a
daughter
by Claire Harris
Goose Lane Press, 2007 (1992)
Natural Disasters: Poems
by Andrea MacPherson
Palimsest Press, 2007
See also TDR's
interview with Andrea MacPherson
Reviewed by Katherine Wootton
Poets Clarie Harris’ and Andrea
MacPherson’s writing reflects interest in the same subject, though
their voice and technique differ greatly. Harris reinterprets what she
portrays as an inherited style to underscore her thematic interest in
ancestry, while MacPherson "thieves" and retells her family
stories; each of them concerned with the importance of retaining and
maintaining their familial mythology, and developing it farther in
response to experiences in their present.
Harris’ book, drawing down a
daughter, is one narrative, but shifts style and voice repeatedly,
finding as many angles as possible from which to attack the subject at
hand. There are stories within stories, poetry and prose, Caribbean and
Western tones, suggestions of biography and fable, traditional and
modern techniques. These are not scattered at random throughout the
text, but flow naturally with the story (stories). At the core of her
work, as the title suggests, is a pregnant woman speaking to her unborn
"Girlchild," essentially introducing her to the world through
the stories the mother has inherited and, as the book progresses, lives
through. Harris contrasts the richness of the stories of Trinidad and
the tropical climate with the cold, sensible, modern convenience of life
in Canada. The mother considers what she has taken from her cultural
background to a place where, as a writer and woman, she has more freedom
to make use of it.
Harris is a confident writer; her word
choice is precise and occasionally almost musical. However, this piece
was, at times, a little overwhelming. As a Westerner, I found it easiest
to relate to the segments where the mother struggles with realities
here, her troubles as an immigrant were more straightforward than the
somewhat elusive sections where the mother directly addresses her
daughter. "here under cool ixora thickets music and her
sisters/engage time in intricate forms so full of seriousness from/
their fullcarved lips wordspills sun burnishes" The language in
these verses, though still strong and evocative, seemed to come from a
place inaccessible to me, preventing me from grasping the emotional
weight of the connection between mother and child.
Natural Disasters
springs
from a different tradition, but Andrea MacPherson, like Harris, speaks
of the stories and legend from her family history. This collection of
poems is divided into three sections. In the first, MacPherson cleaves
to memories, hers and theirs, of her relatives – aunts, grandmothers,
mother – giving an overall impression of unhappy women, some delicate,
some feisty, but generally thrust down and suffering, usually from their
relations with various husbands. In the second, MacPherson speaks from a
more immediate place, of love and possession, which involves a lot of
quiet moments and quietly impassable distance between lovers. In the
third, she concerns herself with those held captive, imagining the small
terrors of entrapment in various locales.
In all of MacPherson’s poetry, there
is an overwhelming sense of capturing memories, mementos of secret
moments or emotions that should not be allowed to entirely fade. She
often catches her characters leaving, sometimes fleeing, but always
looking backward, reminiscing or ruing. "my face would be turned
around/ retrospective". MacPherson’s language doesn’t have the
same gloss or power as Harris’, there is some repetition of images
(particularly cupped hands) and some failed metaphors (I have never met
a pussywillow that felt like rain), though she has some bright turns of
phrase, as in the poem that lends it’s title to the book – "I
wanted to tell him all this/ explain her in terms of natural
disasters". It is clear that MacPherson takes the emotional life
incredibly seriously, that no moment of sorrow, regret, or loneliness
should go unversified. However, this does lend her collection an almost
overly somber air – there is no humour, no irony, to lend more weight
to her melancholy by contrast, and provide balance.
MacPherson and Harris both tell their
own stories as reflections on and continuations of those they have
inherited. Both treat their characters’ emotional lives and their
secrets with reverence, as sources of wisdom. Though neither book is
flawless, there is beauty to be found in the language, and glimpses of
wider truths in the specific flow of their narratives.
Katherine Wootton is a
Toronto-based writer, filmmaker and bookseller. She also edits the Book
section for the Women's Post. |
