Hear Through the Silence by Jennifer Wenn
Guest Reviewed by Linda E. Lucas
Hearing the voice of a poet develop through the course of her written work over the course of decades is a delightful thing to experience. I’ve done it with Atwood, for example. Hearing a poet’s voice develop over the course of a single volume of her work is downright dizzying. I had this experience reading Jennifer Wenn’s Hear Through the Silence. Nine sections of verse delineate nine Norse-like realms that draw the reader from the doubt-riddled world of the untried ephebe to the confident bastion of the seasoned soloist. They also draw you through the life thus far of a woman who began in the husk of a male shell and is now in the stage of emergence, rising fully-formed, like Venus born(e) from the winds and the roaring sea. In fact, emergence is the word I would use to describe the essence of this collection. Her book is an opener of worlds, both her own and those to which she exposes the reader. Sometimes you feel as if you are looking through an album of snapshots that she is showing you as you sit comfortably on her couch, but at other times you feel as if you are being dunked full-immersion-baptism-style into a world for which you have made no preparations to go. Don’t worry: Wenn will bring you gently back to safety in the final section “Gossamer and Fireflies.”
In “Beginnings,” a Homeric invocation to the muses of Walt Whitman and Claude Monet sends you off on a journey of recollection as Wenn discovers her poetic aptitude in childhood. In “Strawberry Picking,” she sets about building “a little mound of/ succulent scarlet perfection,” a wonderful metaphor for writing a poem. Though her voice is uncertain and she feels she is an “improbable medium,” she is “singing in her heart.” She experiences déjà-vu in the Sistine Chapel, at which point she accepts the torch thrown to her and realizes that the exalting, terrifying journey of self-actualization must now begin.
The poems in “Intrusion“ mark the painful parts of Wenn’s emergence. “Transgender Anthem” defends gender as an enactment--an emphatic “unshakeable/ unbreakable” insistence on her right to “disturb comfortable prejudices.” She expresses her gratitude to friends who intuitively sense her chrysalis self and set about honouring her, rather than ostracizing her. In poems like “Mirror,” she longs at times for the fled visionary gleam of her true self, especially when heteronormative resistance to her emergence makes her journey difficult. A large part of her identity is the traveler; she has made the world her poetical sandbox. Each new place becomes another conduit for facilitating her transition and transformation. “Triptychs“ takes us through seven destinations in haiku series form, from Southern Ontario to Northern Hungary. Each set of poems captures moments of tranquil acceptance within nature--like the lull before the storm.
The poems in “Storm“ follow. This section takes us through the harrowing daily rhythms of self-doubt, anxiety, sleeplessness and panic that accompany her transgender journey. Her life is performative, in the sense of Judith Butler’s use of the word. Previously compelled by stares and glares to conform to existing norms in order to be recognized as a worthy human within society, the emerging woman at first fails--and then refuses-- to continue the charade--and therein lies the potential for transformation. While the shell is a place of sanctuary, it is also a prison. She sets out in search of a kind of prelapsarian semiotic paradise where her gender, words and voice are in harmony with each other. As a person whose gender aligned with her sex at birth, I had never before in my life felt that being born female and also being female in essence meant that I enjoyed a kind of privilege, and yet now I know that I do.
The section called “Portraits“ is an intriguing waltz from past to present, each poem a portal to a new world. The Great Wall of China, the oak trees in Wenn’s back yard, Big Band music, the fleeting greatness of Roman emperors, her beloved dog, old growth rainforest, the temples of Egypt--they serve as pathways to the past that remind us that all is fleeting in the end, even though we might try to “imprison” everything around us with a single snapshot, that victory will always be fleeting. She alludes to McCrae’s “In Flanders Fields” in “Remembrance Day 2017,” reminding us that we are “holding aloft that torch/ thrown from other hands.” The poetic voice comes through us, not from us, and passes on to others in its journey. Like the rainforest, that renews itself despite any scars visited upon it by humans, the poet’s voice finds its own path to resurrection. For the poet, it is not time “to pay homage/ to a frozen monument” but a time “to bask in a living metamorphosis.”
In a few of the poems, the “avatar” of Jeff Wenn appears, but Jenn does not retro-fit him to her current self. She gives his voice occasional free reign in the same way you might honour and pay tribute to a former spouse: there is respect, maybe even admiration, but no desire to return. I suspect Jeff’s ghost is present in “Mission: Impossible--Squirrel Protocol,” wherein the offending, marauding, backyard squirrel is described in action flick terms as an “arboreal Ethan Hunt” that must be stopped. The decision to prune back the tree, “re-establish dominance/ or accommodate” is something to be mulled over, in much the same way you might mull over the concept of gender itself: what ‘maleness’ is; what ‘femaleness’ is, and why society feels the need to dichotomize them as antithetical concepts in the first place.
Wenn’s work has a distinctly ekphrastic quality to it that comes through particularly well in the second last poem of “Portraits.” “Linda” is a response to the statue of Elizabeth Wyn Wood. Its form differs from the other poems as it is written in triplets, braided for strength. This is a portrait of a woman emerging, “manifest, unfettered and free,” perfectly apropos to Wenn’s central theme. Here, she is starting to come into her own. While not alluded to specifically in “East Wind,” Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind” might be behind the inspiration for Wenn in this poem. Both are autumnal poems. Where Shelley called upon the wind to make him its lyre and to drive his “dead thoughts over the universe/like wither’d leaves to quicken a new birth,” (Shelley 1026), Wenn faces the wind “like a/ mermaid on the prow of a clipper,” allowing it to thunder through and around her in a joyful way, with the wind “lifting up all who spread their wings.”
Wenn then proceeds to spread those strengthening wings. The next section, “Barnardo Boy,” is an extremely intimate account of the history of Wenn’s British origins, spawned by another recollection, this time the death of a beloved grandfather. She then outlines the life of a “Barnardo Boy” ancestor, a war orphan transported to Canada to become an indentured servant. As when she deals with our indigenous history, Wenn does not shy away from those parts of being Canadian that are not as palatable as our stereotypical reputation for being polite and apologetic. In tracking down her grandfather’s history, Wenn heals the lacunae in her family narrative and her spirit by “singing out and shattering the silence.” The last line, “Grandpa, I hope you liked it,” is extremely touching and sweet.
“Avian Odes“ would make an outstanding illustrated series of sonnets centered around common birds of North America: the Great Horned Owl, Northern Cardinal, American Robin, Mallard, Canada Goose, Mourning Dove, Baltimore Oriole, Black-capped Chickadee and Grackle (but alas that is just me imposing my own ideas on her work). The St. Lucian Parrot is snuck in second from the end as a celebration of “[d]efiant survivors in a/ [t]iny hard-won enclave,” like Wenn herself. Set apart from the other poems in terms of form and style, “Avian Odes“ are only very loosely odes but they are classic in their style and sense. Each line begins with a capital letter which lends an authority to each line but also fragments it from the rest of the poem, goes against contemporary convention and draws attention to itself. When you put down the book, having read the whole thing, it feels like “Avian Odes“ was constructed as a bolstering buffer of familiar traditional poetry, allowing you to gather strength and breath for what you think you know is coming as soon as you see the word ‘Auschwitz’ in the next section. (Trust me; you don’t.)
“Auschwitz Threnody,” a series of seventeen poems, is not for the faint of heart. Death and birth, burgeoning and dwindling, incubation and incineration bash together like lurching railway cars, sometimes in the same line. Wenn grabs you by the back of the neck and forces you to look at Auschwitz in all its horrifying detail and somehow makes you feel as if you are volunteering to stare into a hellish fun-house mirror. Her imagination is a spinning kaleidoscope of hyper-fantastical visions which she is unafraid to let you see. You will move in a danse macabre through freight trains, concentration camps, work yards, and gas chambers and you will see, hear, smell, taste and touch the horror. It will scare the living daylights out of you. She involves herself in the nightmare with self-referential intertextual snippets that drag her complacent self and yours into the role of the executioner. She is nothing short of brutal. As Atwood would say, “The third eye can be merciless, especially when wounded.” (Atwood 62)
More than in any other section of this book, here Wenn’s voice mounts to fortissimo. The imperative voice does not merely ask you to look up from your feet; it commands you. Her penchant for present participles, that normally celebrate movement and progress, gives way to a plethora of past participles decrying inhumanity and cruelty: “Cadavers strewn like/ dead leaves on snow/ piled like cordwood/ heaped like compost.” Her ever-present birth imagery is contorted to death as prisoners of Auschwitz are “crammed into a lethal womb.” Thirteen different languages permeate “Vista” and make real the plight and panic of children in this catastrophe. She admits her own abhorrence but feels “drawn irresistibly to imagining the emotional torrent.” If you ask yourself as you are reading why she does that, the way that I did, she gives you the answer. She vows to honour and exalt those persecuted for their differences, that we might never forget who they were.
Reading this book was at once exhausting and invigorating, terrifying and delightful, intimate and universal. Above all, it was an invitation into the world of a transgender woman that is personal, literary, intellectual, emotional and extraordinarily rewarding. I highly recommend it.
Atwood, Margaret. “Instructions for the Third Eye.” Murder in the Dark and Other Stories, Coach House Press, 1983, p. 62.
Shelley, Percy Bysshe. “Ode to the West Wind.” English Romantic Writers, edited by David Perkins, Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1967, p. 1026.
About the Author
Jennifer Wenn is a trans-identified writer and speaker from London, Ontario, Canada. Her poetry chapbook, A Song of Milestones, was published by Harmonia Press (an imprint of Beliveau Books). She has also written From Adversity to Accomplishment, a family and social history; and published poetry in numerous journals and anthologies. She is also the proud parent of two adult children. Visit her website at https://jenniferwennpoet.wixsite.com/home
About the Reviewer
Linda Lucas has an M. A. from the University of Western Ontario in English Language and Literature. She was born in Marville, Meuse, Province de Lorraine, France and now lives in Sarnia. She has taught high school English and French most of her life in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario. She retired from teaching in 2018. Since that time, she has been working on several projects: a volume of poetry on strong women in her family tree; a feminist play reimagining Gruoch, Lady Macbeth; and a novel called The Undertaker’s Wife as well as four other novels. In her spare time, she likes to read and review poetry books and write and listen to music.
Book Details
Publisher : Cyberwit.net
Publication date : Dec 22 2022
Language : English
Print length : 215 pages
ISBN-10 : 9395224126
ISBN-13 : 978-9395224123
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Well deserved.
What a marvellous, thoroughly well considered review of a lovely book!