The Predicament of Or

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

Short-story writer, novelist, and visual artist Shani Mootoo was born in
Ireland, grew up in Trinidad, and now lives in Vancouver. The
Predicament of Or, her first collection of poems, is divided into four
parts. The poems in Part 1, “The Way You Bounce Off a Pane of
Glass,” communicate childhood memories and experiences (beach scenes,
ocean adventures, games, animals, father’s garden) in the haunting
language of the poet’s Trinidadian home. In charting the partings and
reunions of the poet and her beloved, the elegiac poems in Part 2,
“Or,” portray love as a vehicle for both pain and pleasure. The
condition of the immigrant is the principal theme of Part 3, “The
Quickened Diluvial Shore.” This section includes two poems on Joycean
wordplay that pave the way for “Point of Convergence,” a piece about
the multicultural/multiracial mix that is Mootoo’s life and work.
Appropriately, the two poems in Part 4, “July Plum,” evoke the
Canadian setting of Mount Baker, with the poet, waiting waiting …
Throughout the collection, Mootoo expresses her themes with startling
images and provocative, beautiful language.