Standing All Through the Night

David E. Kemp is chair of the Drama Department at Queen’s University
and author of The Pleasures and Treasures of the United Kingdom.

Audrey Poetker-Thiessen lives and writes in Manitoba, and has been
published in such literary journals as The New Quarterly and Canadian
Literature. Her first book of poetry, I Sing for My Dead in German, was
published in 1986.

This collection essentially voices the unspoken mythology of the
Mennonite people. Poetker-Thiessen’s beautifully understated poems
chronicle the lives of a fascinating people, a people both
matter-of-fact and intensely spiritual. The poems’ understated quality
reflects not a lack of conviction, but rather passion. These poems are
tender, angry, sad, and exultant. They are both a celebration and a
lament for a restless people who seem at home nowhere.

Poetker-Thiessen’s voice is a unique and a confident one. Her
insights are profound, and the effect her poetry has on the reader is
immediate. This is a collection that informs through the senses, and as
such it should be treasured.