Angeline Schellenberg*

Angeline Schellenberg is a Winnipeg poet, and the author of the new collection Fields of Light and Stone (2020, University of Alberta Press). The poems are, as Don McKay says, “acts of remembrance that are all the more poetic for being scrupulously plainspoken…” He also describes them as “a series of love letters to the dead” which says a lot of how Angeline Schellenberg, in these poems, commemorates her Mennonite grandparents, while thoughtfully considering the heritage they passed down to her. Her first full-length collection, Tell Them It Was Mozart, was published by Brick Books in 2016.

Although I was already well aware of her poetry, I only first met Angeline Schellenberg in Winnipeg in 2019 at the inaugural Faith In Form arts conference, which was organized by Burl Horniachek.

The following poem is from Fields of Light and Stone.

Generations

1586: as far back
as the Mennonite database
can take me.

All I find: the surname Voht,
a town called Culm.

My great-great-great-
great-great-great-
great-great-great-

great-great-grandfather
had a daughter
who had a baby.
And on it goes.

What chases us down a family tree?
A high forehead?
A voice? A fear?

What drives me to scratch
the earth for these four-letter
kernels?

Voht’s daughter named her son
Hans―God is gracious,
a promise I can translate.

But I cannot hear
the plea it answered.

Posted with permission of the poet.

*This is the second Kingdom Poets post about Angeline Schellenberg: first post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Luann Hiebert

Luann Hiebert is a Manitoba poet, who serves as Assistant Professor of English Literature at Providence University College, and is an adjunct faculty member at Steinbach Bible College. Her first full-length poetry collection is What Lies Behind (2014, Turnstone Press). It was shortlisted for two Manitoba book awards: the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book, and the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry.

I met her this past October at the Faith in Form Conference in Winnipeg, where we were among the literary presenters, including Sarah Klassen, Sally Ito, Angeline Schellenberg, and Joanne Epp.

a stone’s throw away
(John 8:3-11)

she was familiar
with the pattern

----------he cheated her
----------she cheated him
----------they cheated love

caught
----------women were stoned
----------for such affairs (not
men) the Law

threw her down
----------at the teacher’s feet
demanded condemnation

justice
(un) just
----------a stone’s throw away
----------her death sentence

the teacher drew lines
in the sand drew in the stone
cold crowd

___m_ e_ r_ c_ y___
threw the Law
off guard caught her
by surprise
----------___l_o_v_e__
--------------------threw away
-----------------------------------the stones

Posted with permission of the poet.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Joanne Epp

Joanne Epp is a Winnipeg poet ― originally from Saskatchewan ― whose first full-length collection, Eigenheim, appeared from Turnstone Press in 2015. She has also published a chapbook, Crossings (2012). The name Eigenheim is the German term for “one’s own home.” It is also the name of a small community in Saskatchewan, and the Mennonite Church located there.

In an interview with Canadian Mennonite University she said, “[O]ne of the things I love about poetry [is] that compressed energy that you can get,” She continued, “I think a lot about what being a poet really is… It has seemed to me that being attentive is an essential part of the poet’s work... It has to come out of a love for the world.”

She is connected with a rich circle of Christian poets in Winnipeg, including Sarah Klassen, Sally Ito, Burl Horniachek, Luann Hiebert, and Angeline Schellenberg.

Joanne Epp is assistant organist at St. Margaret’s Anglican Church.

Fugue on the Magnificat

Pachelbel and rain, dim light
on organ keys. Shadows
in the rafters, ribs
of an upside-down ship
parting the water. Down the panes
of pebbled glass, drip by drop,
eighth notes in steady quick-step.
I’m practicing someone else’s prayers,
a means to sharpen my own longing
for that constant love to which
each phrase of counterpoint gives answer.
Rain crescendos to fullness, a deep Amen
on pedal notes that re-echo in the woodwork.
I hold the last long chord, close the book.
Tomorrow I’ll return, repeat
and repeat the task.
Each progress a beginning.

Posted with permission of the poet.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Joanne Epp: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection is Ampersand (2018, Cascade). His books are available through Amazon, and Wipf & Stock, including the anthologies The Turning Aside, and Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse.

Angeline Schellenberg

Angeline Schellenberg is a poet and journalist living in Winnipeg. Her first full-length book, Tell Them It Was Mozart — linked poems about raising children on the autism spectrum — was published by Brick Books in the fall of 2016. It won the Lansdowne Prize for Poetry, the Eileen McTavish Sykes Award for Best First Book, and the John Hirsch Award for Most Promising Manitoba Writer. She works as a copy editor for the Mennonite Brethren Herald, and has had poems appear in Arc, Prairie Fire, CV2, and The New Quarterly. Her poetry chapbook Roads of Stone was published by the Alfred Gustav Press in 2015.

She is one of the poets who contributed a poem about Isaiah 55 for my blog The 55 Project, and has three poems included in my forthcoming anthology Adam, Eve, & the Riders of the Apocalypse (2017, Cascade).

The following poem is from Tell Them It Was Mozart.

Confession

I don't pray much
my words too blunt to pierce a divine ear
my thoughts too heavy to fly
in the face of gravity
I don't pray much
------unless you count the reaching
and resigning of my breast
seventeen thousand times a day
the testing
and trusting under my feet
in every forward, backward
place
------the way my eyelids close
to the mess I cannot clear
I make chaos disappear
and in the morning dare to rise
----------------------------again

Posted with permission of the poet.

This is the first Kingdom Poets post about Angeline Schellenberg: second post.

Entry written by D.S. Martin. His latest poetry collection, Conspiracy of Light: Poems Inspired by the Legacy of C.S. Lewis, is available from Wipf & Stock as is his earlier award-winning collection, Poiema.