A Quarterly of Criticism and Review i^^^^^^^^fcEjfc $15

M. Nourbese Philip's She Tries Her Tongue,Her Silence Softly Breaks are not dub poetry,they are in a continuum of Caribbeanpoetry practices that draw upon the "word,sound, power" equation. Mordecai'sretelling of the passion of Christ or "deman" from the perspective of Naomi, ahouse servant to Pilate's wife, and Samuel,a disabled carpenter friend of Jesus' family,is consistent with an African diasporic liberationtheology which has its roots in theslave spiritual tradition of renderingBiblical narratives as allegory for sufferingand deliverance. Not only does Mordecaicast the entire retelling in the "Caribbeandemotic" as Philip terms it, but her protagonisteye-witnesses are working-classheroes. Further, Rome is representative ofthe colonising powers and "Backra," or thewhite master, is typified by Pontius Pilate.Mordecai puts a fresh spin on a familiarstory to remind us of a neglected truth. Thehistorical Jesus intentionally walked alongsidehis society's most marginal—prostitutes,tax collectors, fishermen, carpenters,domestic workers, and the disabled.M. Nourbese Philip's suite of poems iscontextualized by her superb introductoryessay on the centrality of language to anymovement for self-determination in theAfro-Caribbean. She argues persuasivelythat English has historically been expressiveof the "non-being" of the displacedAfrican, while the various forms of theCaribbean demotic or vernacular "languageof the people" seek to "heal the wordwounded by the dislocation of the word/imageequation." Poems such as "UniversalGrammar" and "The Question of Languageis the Answer to Power" enact an alternativegrammar and phonetics lesson, usingwhat Philip calls "unmanageable form" tosignify the diasporic African subject'srefusal to be managed. Through juxtapositionand fragment, she raises importantquestions around the interrelation of language,history, and social power.Most moving for me is her elegiac tone, the"ordeal of testimony" that gives witness tothe "anguish that is English" in the historyof Empire and its aftermath. The speaker'slast prayer is that "body might becometongue." Philip's emphasis on body, voice,"polyphony and rhythm" returns poetry toits physical roots, as it returns the speakerto her cultural roots where the pulse ofAfrican drums is never far from the page.This book, rich in craft and questions, willreward readers interested in questions ofpostcoloniality and poetic form alike.Fictive OrderMelissa HardyConstant Fire. Oberon S2795/$i3.95M.A.C. FarrantAltered Statements. Arsenal Pulp $12.95Reviewed by Sharon R. WilsonAlthough Constant Fire and Altered Statementsare both promising new works offabulist fiction, they offer two rather differentreading experiences. Hardy, an Ontariowriter born in Durham, North Carolina,draws from Cherokee oral narrative traditionsin writing about the Eastern Band ofCherokees she came to know as a childspending summers on the Qualla Boundaryreservation. Resembling the U.S. writerBarbara Kingsolver in her dedication of herbook to the Cherokee nation (in her case,the Eastern Band) and in her ability to representrather than colonize voices of FirstNation or Native peoples, Hardy's interwovenmythic, historical, and folkloric intertextspresent authentic and often humorousanecdotes of human endurance. In connectedstories about split identities, constructedrealities, and displaced culturaltraditions following Andrew Jackson'sforced evacuation of the Cherokee to Oklahoma(the Trail of Tears), Hardy exploresthe role of ritual and magic in healing137