BigPrizeWinningPoemPartiallyExcerptedHere!
‘BigGermanDialectWordClankinglyInsertedHere!’ by Kevin Spenst won second runner-up in our Magpie Award for Poetry contest.
Judge Renée Sarojini Saklikar describes the poem as ‘a rollicking ride through history, language, and memoir, all told in long lines deftly assembled to tug at both our hearts and our intellect. There’s so much to marvel at here!‘
Enjoy the opening stanzas of this rip-roaring poem, excerpted here from Issue 36, Autumn 2022.
BigGermanDialectWordClankinglyInsertedHere!
The problem with the German language
is Germans, but really above all one. Not Adolf
“attack, always attack!” Anderssen, a chess master
“Angreifen, immer angreifen!”
from the 1800s — the chessophiles rooted for this successful
and likeable bloke — but rather the other
on whose birthday mine happens to land.
When the casting director said I’d make
a perfect nazi, she was joking but I mean…
Scheiße! During the war, some of my kin
were conscientious objectors
in the stalemate of a jail. They belonged to a sect
whose historic move
was to refuse to take up arms against anyone.
The broad term is Anabaptists, not the Täuferreich von Münster ones
who formed a communal government in 1534 which enforced
polygamy, no, not on your life!
bestimmt nicht!
My ancestors were decidedly more monogamous
and pacifist, a position that roundly got them
slaughtered. They trekked to Russia for farmland,
for hundreds of years poised as pawns …
To read the rest of this fantastic poem, and for more from Issue 36, visit the bookstore!
Kevin Spenst (he/him) is the author of Ignite, Jabbering with Bing Bong, Hearts Amok: A Memoir in Verse (all with Anvil Press), in addition to over a dozen chapbooks, with three more on the horizon. His most recent writing appears in the anthologies Event 50: Collected Notes on Writing, as well as Resonance: Essays on the Craft and Life of Writing. His book launch during the pandemic was featured in a book about creative practices: The Creative Instigator’s Handbook. He teaches creative writing at Vancouver Community College and Simon Fraser University. Kevin lives in Vancouver on unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish) and səl̓ilw̓ətaʔɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) territory.
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