Something Else, Something Unspoken - a Blackout poem based on an essay by Di Brandt

Something Else, Something Unspoken

in the vibrations of the rich black prairie soil, a wildness,
freedom, faint trace of thundering herds of buffalo,
the smell of woodsmoke in the air, the incessant beating of drums.
Hidden in my blood, my bones, an older memory
out on the green hills under the moon, in the Flemish lowlands
before the persecutions, the Inquisition, the Burning Times,
before we became transients, exiles --I remember
when we gathered, my women ancestors, around fires,
free-spirited, surrounded by trees. I remember
when worship meant laughter and dancing and lovemaking
under the moon, carelessly, instead of remembering
the torture of innocents, and fearing the night, and obeying
our husbands, and sitting in church.


This is a "blackout poem," a technique in which one blacks out all but a few chosen words or phrases in a text, maintaining the order of the original, but omitting words and phrases. All words are from Di Brandt's essay, "This land that I love, this wide, wide prairie," published in her book of essays, So this is the world and here I am in it (NeWest Press, 2007).

Brandt speaks to the contrast between a way of life that relies on the goodness of the earth, and a way of life based on perpetuating the memories of suffering, fear, and terror of one's ancestors.

Responding to Mennonite Identity Poems

In class we read "Mennonites" by Julia Kasdorf, "How to Write the New Mennonite Poem," by Jeff Gundy, and "A New Mennonite Replies to Julia Kasdorf" by David Wright. All three poems are collected in A Cappella: Mennonite Voices in Poetry. Students could respond to the poems with their own poem about identity inspired by these poems.  Here's my attempt:


Explanations

“Methodist,” I used to say
when the neighborhood kids asked me,

because the word began with “M.”
Once I answered “Mormon,” and gained

a friend. She invited me over and when
her parents asked,  I had to confess.

"Mennonites are a lot like Mormons,” I said,
not knowing how exactly, though I felt at home

eating meatballs with her parents and brother,
lingering at the table to talk. At recess, I chose

the German side, because my relatives spoke
Pennsylvania Dutch. But when I went home

my parents quickly explained we weren't
that kind of German. I read about Edith Cavell

who faced a firing squad for helping soldiers
on both sides. "We must love our enemies," Jesus said.

I pretended my blue-gray dress was my
prison drab. Brave like Edith, I'd say

“I’m Mennonite,”
and they would pardon me.

--Ann Hostetler, 9/17/2013

The Illumination of Martha - Sylvia Bubalo's Art as Midrash

Having just written a catalog about an exhibit of Sylvia Bubalo's work at the Good Library of Goshen College, "Imagining Community," I am out of words to describe the fascinating and deeply felt work of this unique artist, poet, and visionary. Instead, I would like to refer readers to one of my favorite response to her painting by Dawn Ruth Nelson, a pastor and spiritual director from Harleysville, Pennsylvania. The response was published in a special issue of the Journal of the Center for Mennonite Writing, September 19, 2010, on Sylvia's art and poetry, which I edited. Raised a few generations later in the same Franconia Mennonite Conference as Sylvia, Dawn discovered Sylvia's work as an adult and asked "Who was this artist, where was this woman all my life? This Mennonite female Chagall I never knew existed till she died? Was she too dangerous?"

Why dangerous? Perhaps because she challenges the status quo and puts women's spiritual experience at the center of her work, although she also includes many male figures as well. But Sylvia was reacting to a time in Mennonite congregational life when women were deprived of roles in church leadership. She not only portrays women as central to community and worship, but dares to interpret bible stories in a bold light.  As I wrote in my introduction to the Journal issue, "Sylvia’s vibrant engagement with Bible stories, reminiscent of the Jewish practice of Midrash or wrestling with the text, reveals a living faith that demanded her full resources as an artist. On the other hand, she was an outspoken critic of what she considered to be ossified practices and traditions among the Mennonites of her Pennsylvania community, especially those pertaining to women."

Dawn's reflection on the Mary and Martha story, a bible story key to a deeper understanding of the contemplative life, illuminates the paintings in a vivid way. She also looks closely and intelligently at the paintings. I didn't notice that every work of the story in scripture was painted into the background of "Martha," until I read Dawn's essay. Writes Dawn:

"The picture is called “Martha”, and that title would work just as well for the whole Mennonite community. We specialize in service. This story speaks to us because it does uphold the importance of service – Jesus enjoyed Martha’s hospitality or he wouldn’t have come back to her house so often for refreshment. But the story is really about the importance of something else: the importance of paying attention, of stillness, of listening, of simply “being with”. The story explains much of my own journey toward more focused prayer and worship. There is more than service in the Kingdom of God – there is a Person at the center who asks for our attention - a Person we can sit with, be with, who sets us free when we do that. And not just people in general but women in particular - in this story - free to pay attention to the one thing necessary."

Dawn is herself the author of a book on Mennonite spirituality, based on her interviews with her Mennonite grandmother, A Mennonite Woman: Exploring Spiritual Life and Identity.

Women have played a major role in shaping Mennonite literature, perhaps because more traditional routes were less available to them. Just as "Martha" sits rapt and attentive as "Mary" before the unlocked door in this painting, so can we begin to undo some gender bias in the representation of Mennonite theology and spirituality through studying the art and poetry of Sylvia Bubalo.

Mennonite Literature as Ethnic Lit

Today we had our first discussion in Mennonite Lit -- about Nathan Englander's "What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank," which first appeared in The New Yorker in December 2011, and which was later published in 2012 as the title story of a collection.  Englander's story portrays and encounter between two couples that represent the liberal and conservative extremes of the group. Brought together by the wives' school-girl friendship, the husbands struggle to connect. Eased by liquor, and then some pot discovered in a teenaged son's clothes hamper, the couples began to peel back the layers of decorum, revealing their assumptions about space, place, occupation, family, the holocaust, marriage, intermarriage, Jewish identity, trust, intimacy, finally testing out the latter three items by playing the Anne Frank game in a well-stocked pantry, challenging each other to discern whether or not they would save each other--given another holocaust, and one of them being non-Jewish.

What makes an ethnic group and how is it reflected in literature?  Ingredients include a shared history, shared religious beliefs or specific cultural practices, a language, and a resistance to, or anxiety about, assimilation into the mainstream culture. All of these elements are also present in Mennonite literature. There's even a version of a joke in Englander's story that I first heard in reference to Mennonites: "Why don't Mennonites have sex standing up? Because it could lead to dancing."

Englander's story is a take-off on a famous story by Raymond Carver, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." Carver's story also involves two couples getting soused, but it is not an ethnic story, unless we count rather well-off white alcoholics as an ethnic group. In 2007, The New Yorker published a version of Carver's story to show how the original was heavily edited by Gordon Lish.