part one: bio RIPPED ROOTS

Ripped Roots

Poetry engages the reader in a new sense oft taken for granted; Language. Di Brandt may critize the methods of her strict Canadian Mennonite upbringing, but she cannot keep from loving the people of and embodying the rich flow of langue she learned. She spoke high German on Sundays, English on school days, and Low German in her home, each with their own flavor and fight in word play and meaning. Children were praised for reciting prose, but cautioned to only tell the truth and shy away from any form of fiction. The high Mennonite standard of “fiction as un-truth” caused her to shy away from such imagination in her early work, her father’s condemnation to such deception echoing in her ears. Brant broke norms by leaving the Reinland community at age 17 (1969) to pursue a Bachelor of Theology from Canadian Mennonite Bible College as well as B.A, M.A., and PhD in English and Literature from Canadian universities. She was on a quest to answer all the unanswered questioned she asked her mother. Despite her separation from the community that squelched non-biblical and “truthful” writing, none of her work was published until 1979, the year her father died.

Di Brandt’s first and second books, questions i asked my mother (1987), and Agnes in the sky(1990), addresses her struggle with the collision of Mennonite beliefs and actions and unveiling taboo topics like feminism and sex-spirituality while seeking for an identity outside of her childhood culture. Although her work  shocked the Rhineland community, her mother appeared at several readings Brant performed. “I think this was when my mother really started to love me,” Brant says, revealing tender cord of Mother daughter relationships seen throughout her writing. Mother, not mother (1992) focuses on this topic more than any other book and was her first step toward what would later translate a base for her work Wild Mother Dancing: Maternal Narrative Strategies for Writing Across the Centuries. Di Brant became all too aware of the mother’s absence from literature in western culture, like the absence of the Woman’s voice in the Reinland community. This book that revolves around her experiences as mother, daughter, and sister is commended for its light, quick prose that carries such dense, dark honesty and pain (?).  Her strong feminist and maternal perspectives can be traced back to this third publication of her career.

Jerusalem, beloved (1995) holds Brandt’s tendency to speak for the unspoken when she ventures out to the holy city to observe and write on the Palestinian-Israli Conflict from former’s perspective, while a pro-Israeli writer covered the other side. The year following, she wrote her first collection of essays Dancing Naked(1996), as a way to make sense of her inner paradoxes. She vanishes from the publishing house for seven years; her writing appears again in 2003, taking more ecological and feminist stances than musing on Mennonite, possibly due to her ban from the Rhine community.  So this is the world &here I am in it (2007) however, returns to the hard questions and memories she ten years after the Ban.

Di Brandt’s career extends beyond personal writing; she has edited several works, collaborated with other writers for specific pieces including a novel, and even wrote response to a chap book Dorothy Livesay  compiled in Dorothy’s old age along with musicians who combined two poet voices with music in honor of the great poet they knew. Her most current work Walking to Mojacar (2010) includes a portion where she takes German hymns and transforms them for the city Detroit which she says is “the most damaged city.” Her anguish of the ‘developed’ world destroying the sacred land ties directly to the honor she has for her heritage, “The Mennonites had a great sense of responsibility to the land, of living close to it… an intimate relationship with it.” These same thoughts are behind her award winning book Now You Care (2003) and several other convictions. 

Brandt’s work can be described as a string of “passionate accusations,” forcing people to see through elegance and power of language to truth of injustice while spilling beauty  of life from every line. Though no longer considered part of the Mennonite community that grew her like fields in summer, she no doubt is still irrevocably Mennonite in her convictions and wanderings, seeking art and intellect for those who would not.

Published Works: Poetry Books

Walking to Mojácar, with French and Spanish translations by Charles LeBlanc and Ari Belathar (2010);

 Speaking of Power: The Poetry of Di Brandt, Selected Poetry, ed.
 with Introduction by Tanis MacDonald, Afterword by Di Brandt (2006);

Now You Care (2003);

 Bouquet for St. Mary (chapbook, 2003);

Jerusalem, beloved (1995);

mother, not mother (1992);

 Agnes in the sky (1990);

questions i asked my mother (1987).

Works Cited

Shetler, Paul. " Di Brandt." Mennonite Voices in Poetry, Editor Ann Hostetler.

Web. 3 Feb. 2011

Nurse, Donna Bailey. “Di Brant: Poems of passionate accusation.” Quill & Quire. June

2004. Web. 3 Feb. 2011.

“Di Brant: Books and Cds.” Brandon University.

http://www2.brandonu.ca/di_brandt/books_and_cds.html Web. 3 Feb. 2011.