Anansi, 2020
I’ve followed John Elizabeth Stintzi’s work since I
first met them on a writing retreat at the Sage Hill Writing Experience in
Saskatchewan in the summer of 2014. They were in a different writing group—not
poetry—but they read their poetry at one
of our open mic nights. It was something to take note of, so I watched with
keen interest to see when they would release their first collection. Knife Fork
Book, in Toronto, released their chapbook, The Machete Tourist, in 2018.
I read it, reviewed it for Montreal-based Debutantes, and then kept
waiting patiently for their first full poetry collection. I’ve found it in the
glorious incarnation that is titled Junebat.
With Junebat, you can see that the flickers of
things that were being explored in The Machete Tourist have grown into
themselves. The archetypal and individual search for self is documented in Junebat.
To begin, Stintzi offers us “Origa/me,” using the metaphor of making
origami “butterflies,/pigeons, bats,” and finishing with a tiny crane that is
held “on the continent of my fingertip.” With the final line of this opening
poem, the poet writes “I’m not sure I can fold my life any smaller than this.”
It’s from this place of feeling boxed in—of knowing you’ve touched down on the
bottom of the metaphorical pool—that you can only ever begin to just push off
and rise more fully. You have to begin to take up the space you know you’re
meant to take up in your life. This line does all of that and more, as a place
to push off from and move forward in terms of how we ‘become’ and truly step
into ourselves.
So what is a Junebat? There are a number of poems that
speak to Stintzi’s creation. In “Salutations from the Storm,” the poet opens
with “Sometimes I wonder/if I’m really the best/person for this body.” In “The
Junebat on the Dump,” it becomes clearer that the notion of what a Junebat is
is something that isn’t easily defined, and maybe that is the beauty of it
all—that it should not be boxed in and up, that it should be fluid and free. This,
the poet tells us throughout the book, is not just about gender, geography,
social status, or family history. “The Junebat is the body is the plastic bag
is the wind/is the mountain is the dump of the mind is the hope.” The beauty
and struggle that is present in “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Junebat” is a
tribute to Wallace Stevens’ “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” but it’s
much more poignant and honest. Stintzi writes beautifully of how
Junebats can only
be seen
when your walls
are down, when
the snowbanks grow
tall as the skyline
and the world is
frigid and flat.
This is where they
fold.
This where they
fly.
The image and metaphor of the origami bird that took
flight in the very first poem carries the reader through like a silk-ribboned
motif.
To be a Junebat inside, and then to embody its
essence, isn’t simple or easy. It is painful, this emergence from a stubborn
and often restrictive chrysalis. In “Another Weeping Junebat,” there is talk of
finding “the shape you’ve found in your shadow” as you “shake and sob.” To find
the right person, one who will understand your essence, is really a rare and glorious
thing. In this poem, Stintzi writes “maybe the tears come” from “her believing
you makes this all so true//it could never not be.” Imagine, then, that sense
of overwhelming acceptance, of relief, and of being loved for who you are
inside and out.
I have favourites in this collection, I must admit.
I’m fond of “Apophatic Junebat” and its mirrored “Cataphatic Junebat.” The
other poem that I love is “Get Lucky?” which speaks of how love emerges sort of
magically from a friendship. It documents that ‘in between’ space that is so
full of presence and absence at the same time. It fills it with longing, and
then with fulfilment.
We gaze up at the
blank ceiling, talking,
our molecules
inching—for hours, it feels—until
they reach skin,
until they swirl in fear of what
could come from
two troubled rivers merging.
I turn your face
to me. We float a moment in estuary.
The sheer beauty of this imagery, and of the tension
between two people who are both fearful and expectant, is perfectly captured.
In the end, what you learn from reading Stintzi’s work
is that a Junebat can’t be boxed up and in, that identity should be fluid and
creative, and that trying to define a person’s core essence is really quite
futile. If we could only all learn that lesson, to be fluid within ourselves
and not worry about what anyone else thinks, then the world might be a better
place. Could we not, the poet seems to suggest, just allow Junebats to be
Junebats, and not worry about what they mean or how they can be categorized?
Could we not just be and not worry about anyone else’s journey or path
through life? Reading Stintzi’s Junebat is a tribute to stepping into
oneself, to accepting the uncertainty of journey towards understanding self,
and an invitation to just keep exploring the world in poetic and spirited ways.
Kim Fahner lives and writes
in Sudbury, Ontario. She was poet laureate in Sudbury from 2016-18, and was the
first woman appointed to the role. Kim's latest book of poems is These Wings
(Pedlar Press, 2019). She's a member of the League of Canadian Poets, the
Writers' Union of Canada, and a supporting member of the Playwrights Guild of
Canada. Kim blogs fairly regularly at kimfahner.wordpress.com and can be
reached via her author website at www.kimfahner.com
