Book review: Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English

Reviewed by Karl Hele

Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English is a wonderful collection of poems by Anishinaabeg scholar and language speaker Margaret Noodin. In Weweni, Noodin seeks to forefront Anishinaabemowin through her poetry by presenting each poem in Anishinaabemowin first, then a loose lyrical translation in English follows. In other words, the English version of the poem is a shadow of the Anishinaabemowin poem.

Noodin offers a brief pronunciation guide to allow readers to hear the rhythm, cadence, and sounds of our language, while the English serves as a signposting. By fore-fronting Anishinaabemowin, Noodin is seeking to enable the “continuance in all directions – ancient, future, and across the difficult present…” of our language (xii).

The collected poems explore the Anishinaabeg experience that is filled with advice, dreams, spirituality, past and present, as well as a deep knowledge of a lived experience and living language. It is obvious that each of Noodin’s poems are crafted with consideration and knowledge that are expressed through a deep understanding of Anishinaabemowin as a living language that is relevant in the contemporary world and links us to our collective ancestral pasts.

Thus, Weweni is a marvellous collection of Noodin’s poetry that will inspire, inform, educate, and encourage the continuance of Anishinaabemowin.  The volume should be used in the classroom by those learning the language as well as for pure enjoyment of the lyrical cadences, word play, meanings, and experience found within each poem. I see the essence of the entire volume, Weweni, in the lines of the second last poem, “Rising Sun”:

We never really break.

We fall back in the crashing waves

to stand up once again (93).

Margaret Noodin, Weweni: Poems in Anishinaabemowin and English. Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 2015.

ISBN 0814340385