Anne Szumigalski - Reviews

Reviews

Z is thus, in my estimation, a major dramatic achievement. Szumigalski’s integration of poetry, dance and drama is so effective that she has managed to put an experience on stage which not only makes you think about the horrors of the past but also about the callousness and dangers of the present. She sounds a wake-up bell, telling us to stay vigilant.

I think that Anne Szumigalski deserves to be heard, sounded, because she represents the highest achievement of the English-Canadian mystical oracular poet, perhaps equaled only by Gwendolyn MacEwen. Too, her defence of spoken word aligns her with the only poetic movement in Canada that is fully of the people, by the people, for the people. As a poet of mystical bent, she is a bridge between the Blake mode and its strongest Anglo-Canadian practitioners, helping again to reinforce the non-academic side of our mainly academically-oriented verse. Her fascination with print and art highlights the possibility for other “illuminated books” in our culture, while her passionate religious philosophy connects her to such epochal figures as Louis Riel. As well, her union of dance and poetry may reinvigorate our drama, while her status as immigrant aligns her with that strong proportion of Canadian literature created by foreign-born writers. Finally, as a woman whose feminism is both complex and natural, she opens up understandings of relationships beyond gender clichés. She is a woman British Prairie oracular poet who belongs transformatively to the entire English-speaking world. Poets, read her.

It’s a strange feeling to be giving the Anne Szumigalski Lecture for the League of Canadian Poets. Anne Szumigalski and I were connected with the same magazine, long, long ago—in the early days of Grain — but even longer ago than that, I was present at the formation of the League of Canadian Poets, way back in the mid-’60s