Fire Power

Eugenia Sojka teaches English at the Memorial University of
Newfoundland.

This collection’s dedication—to “Two-Spirit Friends from many of
the First Nations, in Australia as well as the Americas,” as well as
to “Prisoners, Comrades & Survivors in the war against injustice &
abuse”—points to the major theme of the poems: the colonization and
victimization of the disadvantaged in contemporary society.

Reflecting on the battle of First Nations people for sovereignty and
justice, Chrystos laments “land theft, cultural & spiritual
appropriations,” “5 centuries of murder, rape & slavery” (“Rude
as 2:29 A.M.”), and the plight of homeless, unemployed, and hungry men
and women (“The Land of the Free,” “Why Indian Unemployment Is So
High”). She derides the exploitation of First Nations in the
“hollywood ... cowbullshit movies” that abound with “images of
romance, savagery, stupidity and treachery.” She scorns “the massive
& deliberate campaign of lies which constitute the history of
government.”

The poet’s rejection of the world of the colonizers is further
evidenced in her use of language. Traditional Western rhymed metrical
verse is jettisoned in favor of texts that resist categorization,
feature mundane and unpolished vocabulary, and challenge the rules of
conventional syntax, grammar, and punctuation.

The reader’s astonishment at the sheer vitriol directed at “western
syphilization” and whites (“I hate them fiercely”) is balanced by
a sense of empathy that comes with reading those poems and journal
entries that document the poet’s struggle for survival in an abusive
family, and her horrific experiences in psychiatric hospitals. While
several superb poems of lesbian erotica (“Your Gentleness Sweeps”)
testify to one crucial aspect of the poet’s “power,” first and
foremost Chrystos is a warrior “against all forms of injustice,” and
her book is “the song of the people, not the painted bird of the
academic machine” (“Gathering Words”).