"Damm's
cries for belonging seem to touch chords for all humankind
in the late 20th century." The Ottawa Citizen
Young
poet's yearnings touch chords for all of us
The Ottawa Citizen
Saturday, August 14, 1993
Page: B8
Section: News
Byline: P.J.M. Robertson
Page Name: Books
My Heart Is a Bullet, by Kateri Damm; Kegedonce (RR
5, Wiarton, Ont., Cape Croker Reserve, N0H 2T0); 54
pages; paperback, $15
Who
am I? Where do I come from? What am I doing here? Where
do I belong? The eternal questions are the concern of
Kateri Damm's poems, charged with particular poignancy
in that the Ottawa-based poet is of mixed Anishnaabe,
Polish-Canadian, Pottawatomi, English and French blood,
and is from the Chippewas of Nawash band of Cape Croker,
Ont.
Her
collection is also a debut for Kegedonce Press of Cape
Croker, and an impressive one at that, with fine cover
work by Rebecca Belmore, an Ojibway from Upsala, Northern
Ontario.
As
in life, so in poetry we need a focus outside ourselves
for the person inside us to gel and belong. Damm's incantatory
and intensely first-person poems seem yearning for focus
beyond her "I. Occasionally they chance on one,
as in stray bullets (subtitled oka re/vision ) and in
indian enough with its we-can't-choose-our-parents cri
de coeur.
And
very occasionally, as in these lines from mixed blood:
notes from a split personality :
heal
me of this strange blood dis/ease re/pair this compass
so i can find my way with
startlingly
clear directions
And
these lines from I Lose Track of the Land:
i
long to join the dance of the earth -- I knew the movements
once
Damm's
cries for belonging seem to touch chords for all humankind
in the late 20th century.
With
tenacity and a fierce determination to avoid cliche
of all kinds (in word, mood, tone, subject, etc.), this
young poet should break through and find her voice more
often.
