Beneath the Naked Sun

Rhonda Sandberg is a Sudbury-based freelance writer and poet.

Connie Fife’s first poetry collection reveals an emergent Cree voice
that addresses the spirit of women in a defiant yet passionate manner.
Her powerful poetry reverberates with reminiscences of pain, betrayal,
and near self-disintegration, as well as experiences of joy and renewal.

Fife’s voice is personal, revelatory, and often fraught with anger
and intensity, as exemplified in “beloved”: “hear me howl into the
night / a wailing song for my beloved / see me pound my fists against
earth / watch my rage thrown to the sky.” One of the most sensitive
poems in the volume is entitled “I have not gone”: “i recall my
mother’s / hands cradling my / body into a dark night / her palm
roamed / through my hair / planted story on the / insides of my eyes /
fingertips whispered / of my beginnings / spoke of how joy / and i were
one.”

Although Fife demonstrates glimpses of insight in her poems, many show
a lack of consistency or polish. However, despite its struggles with
connectedness and clarity, Beneath the Naked Sun is definitely worth
reading. Charged with determination, as her poetry dictates, Fife is a
poet to be closely followed.