It’s hard to pinpoint the power in Joel Deane’s Magisterium. Perhaps it’s the duality between the intuitive, interiority and the strong authoritative, apocalyptic voices that guide these poems. They are at once powerful and booming, yet muted at the same time. The tension created by this conflict is effective, bringing the reader closer, even as it warns us to keep distance. He isn’t afraid to deal with the most painful subject matter, whether it’s personal loss like miscarriage or the death of loved ones, national disgrace like the torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay or migrant children thrown overboard, or global issues like pollution and global warming. For Deane, the personal and the political are intrinsically interlinked. The big stuff is all personal. The personal impacts on the public and political choices we make en masse.
The book is divided into two parts: “Ex Cathedra” and “Sede vacante”, both a nod to the title, which refers to the teaching authority of the Church, interpreting the word of God.
“Ex Cathedra” is from the infallible chair from which the “truth” is spoken. Throughout the book there is a Sibyl-like reverence for the truth. It’s a truth though that isn’t always obvious; nor does it tend to come from those in power. The Sybil in this case isn’t a priest, but rather the poet. And truth isn’t to be found in proclamation, but rather in the questions:
In which beast’s belly do I lie?
Does my maker fetch and heel?
Does it walk or crawl or fly?
Is mercy found in its cold eye? (“Modus Vivendi”)
These questions aren’t always simple ones, nor are they always as clear as they are in “Modus Vivendi”. The questions come from how we cope with our own guilt; how we keep going on while processing the loss and pain that characterise our lives. “The first terrorist” and “The river” remind us that there is always a larger truth than the purely human one. These poems call to mind great natural tragedies like the Boxing Day Tsunami. It’s nature here that is ‘speaking’ “ex-cathedra”:
Driving us to the mouth of a sea
that foamed and hissed—
taking us by surprise.
Taking us by surprise
Because,
In fearing only ourselves,
We had forgottenThe first terrorist was nature,
And we the infidels in its Jerusalem. (“The first terrorist”)
If there was any doubt about our role as infidels ‘in nature’s Jerusalem,’ Deane hits the reader with a series of poems that make our crimes clear. There’s “Guantanamo” which hits hard against the abuses at the US detention camp in Cuba, showing how easy it is to rationalise torture as we go about our daily lives. “The plague” moves closer, giving us the voice of the participant: the gun toting boys who don’t understand until they are already guilty. Both of these poems are intense enough on their own, but coupled with the final one in the series, “Rhetorica”, which provides an overview of war and polarity, the impact is almost shocking:
The rhetoric of the age is not written in words,
but spelled out in the disarray of deconstructed,
disembodied bodies.
I had to take a break from reading after the icy finality of “Unholy Trinity”, with its “hope, hope, hopeless” trinity. Fortunately Deane provides a great deal of personal warmth as he moves into the next series, which are more personal and family oriented. There is still pain and grief, but it is shared, loving, and human. The loss of a child is dealt with beautifully, with longing but no self-pity in “Man to Woman,” a poem which takes it cadence and rhythm from Judith Wright’s famous “Woman to Man”:
Who shines the light? Who wields the blade?
You hold me, and I am afraid.”
The poems remain personal, addressing love and loss in a range of innovative ways, including one that places the loss of a child against a de Kooning painting. The voice in this one is almost detached – an abstract impressionistic perspective on stillbirth: “Gave; took. Existed; did not exist.” with only the tiniest italicised voice in the corners of this poem to hint at the personal pain.
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