Spring 2025 · Vol. 54 No. 1 · pp. 150–152
Book Review
New and Selected Poems of Sarah Klassen
Winnipeg, MB: CMU Press, 2024. 228 pages.
As the first volume in the Lyrik Poetry Series, New and Selected Poems of Sarah Klassen provides readers with a collection of Klassen’s poetic works that span a decades-long writing journey. The text presents itself as something of a “Greatest Hits” compilation, intriguing to longtime fans and newcomers alike. Sarah Klassen’s poetry fits comfortably within the world of Mennonite writing. Readers familiar with North American Mennonite poetry but unfamiliar with Klassen’s work will certainly see parallels with other contemporary Mennonite poets, most clearly Jean Janzen.
Editor Nathan Dueck has arranged works thematically from Klassen’s eight previous book publications, although one must not apply the specific p. 151 themes too rigidly as her poetry frequently meanders through multiple thematic categories. The collection also includes sixteen new poems from Klassen as well as an epilogue, “Waging peace,” a fitting final poem from this Manitoba Mennonite poet. There she states:
You might as well
wage peace as war. You’ll have to stand
exposed at the crossroad of unguarded anger
a presence, not an absence. (179)
Regardless of the topic, one certainly feels Klassen’s “presence” throughout her poetry—a strong sense of “I-ness” in her work. She is there, observing and drawing on her myriad life experiences, as the poem takes shape. Many of the poems in this collection are highly personal and invite the reader into the poet’s life. Such is the case with those capturing her time as an English instructor. Musings about her students often give way to considerations of language itself. Language, of course, is the medium of the poet, and there is certainly an acknowledgement, both directly and indirectly, of the power of language. More often, though, the poet recognizes the limitations of words, as in the poem “In Translation” where the speaker notes language’s imprecision, both in rendering an interlingual translation and in capturing nature in poetry. At the end of “On the banks of the Nile,” the speaker states bluntly that “there’s only so much you can do / with words” (107).
At times Klassen taps into other art forms to help address this limitation of language as other sensory experiences provide inspiration for her poetry. Whether it is Brahms’ Ein Deutsches Requiem or the paintings of Redon and Hopper, we follow the poet’s wandering/wondering mind as the written word works to cocreate meaning with auditory and visual experiences.
Robert Frost once famously described poetry as a “momentary stay against confusion” (“The Figure a Poem Makes,” 1939), and many of Klassen’s poems start from a place of confusion: revolution in Russia, a mass shooting in Montreal, migration experiences, the death of children. Seldom is a “stay” provided, if one equates “stay” with answers. The poem, however, does become a refuge, a valuable space for contemplation. Nathan Dueck, in his introduction to the text, insightfully describes Klassen’s “Mennonite sensitivity,” by which he means her interest “in understanding the ethical response to human suffering” (xv). This curiosity and care—whether on a micro or macro level—are apparent throughout the collection.
If, however, one is expecting explicitly religious poetry with clear moral lessons from this Mennonite poet, then one will be disappointed. But therein lies the strength of much of the work. The poems repeatedly show Klassen p. 152 musing on particular Bible verses or exploring the complexities of biblical characters (e.g., Hosea, Zephaniah, Haggai), often by making the familiar unfamiliar and embracing ambiguity and paradox. Many poems read as meditations, as mini-sermons that provide multiple ways of exploring a topic. Klassen herself describes this process in the afterword to the collection as “photographing a subject from various angles to get a fuller understanding of it” (186).
The result is Klassen’s beautiful lyrical verse, weaving past and present and drawing heavily on the natural world that not only bears witness to the profound and mundane moments of human existence but also provides a rich repository of metaphors for the poet attempting to make some sense of it all. This valuable collection brilliantly captures Klassen’s exploration of the transience and mystery of life. Reflecting on the act of putting together this collection, which potentially could indicate the conclusion of her poetry writing journey, Klassen asks, “And does this mark an end?” (183). One certainly hopes not.
