A Little Feral
A playful collection, Maria Giesbrecht’s A Little Feral invokes her religious background.
Born in Mexico and of Mennonite ancestry, Giesbrecht found release in writing: “A safe / rebellion. A poem. / It’s the way I have survived.” Herein, God and her violent, alcoholic father, with whom she has a love-hate relationship, appear as authorities whose joint power has waned: “Some days I want to crawl / into my throat and scrape out / all the hymns I sang / in reverence to a God / my father custom built / for me.”
The book’s metaphorical matrix is a sly blend of the material with the supernatural. Clothing, decor, food, and music are frequent points of reference (“the sun hangs grey and washed / like an old comforter / on a grandmother’s clothesline”), but faith is always apt to pop up, too. A key pastime is described as “writing poems about flirting with God (which is really just living — there’s no difference).”
With a tongue-in-cheek tone, the book ponders the value of breaking the rules when settling on a personal identity. A borrowed Sylvia Plath line connects to the observance of sad-girl tropes on Instagram, while alliteration and slant and internal rhymes result in enduring sonic appeal.
Through sensual vocabulary and sibilance, the poems of A Little Feral capture a bittersweet, resonant religious upbringing.
Reviewed by
Rebecca Foster
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
