Medusa's Children: A Journey

John Walker is a professor of Spanish studies at Queen’s University.

With the influx of Chilean artists into Canada since the 1973 fall of
Allende, we have become accustomed to the Chilean presence in our
cultural life. Although the reverse procedure is not very common,
Canadian poet and journalist Lake Sagaris has lived in Chile for the
past 12 years. Apart from collections like Circus Love, she has also
published Exile Home / Exilio en la patria, and has edited and
translated (into Spanish) anthologies of Canadian poetry and short
stories.

The second half of Medusa’s Children consists of the poet’s
impressions of two parts of Canada and Chile—namely, Newfoundland and
Chiloé. (Sagaris has lived and traveled in both regions.) What the
islands have in common is the sea and a colonial past. Sagaris attempts
to link and compare the two islands through both their history and their
mythology. Her Newfoundland poems are full of fascinating details about
the Vikings, Erik the Red, legendary figures like William Cormack, and
the Shanandithi tribe. The Chiloé section, to my mind, is much more
mythical, mystical, and spiritual (as becomes Latin American literature
in the post-magical-realism era), with references to gypsies, echoes,
the lost city of the Caesars, and Spanish-titled poems on La Fiura, the
Trauco, the Pincoya, Pinfiurya, Macuс, and other strange creatures who
people the poems of Lake Sagaris.

Although the parallels and the links between the two islands do not
always stand up, this collection is a fascinating exercise, and one
worthy of our admiration.