BOOK REVIEW: Paper Children by Mariana Marin (UDP, 2006) by Masha Jennings

Mariana Marin lived her life under the Ceausescu dictatorship as is mentioned by translator Adam J Sorkin in his Introduction to Paper Children. He also mentions that Marin was born in Bucharest to a mother in a weaving collective (Paper Children, UDP, 2006). The book is her first collection published in English. Released by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2006. Adam J Sorkin continues throughout his introduction to speak broadly about Marin’s life and her adventures as an avant garde poet in a totalitarian society. I can’t help but empathize with Marin’s focal point on Death (moarte, a feminine she in many of Marin’s poems). The definition of ‘totalitarian’, according to Dictionary.com, is “a centralized government that does not tolerate parties of differing opinion.” This may seem to only apply well to those regimes in Eastern Europe and South-East Asia that were once called “Communist”. The notion however, is that it applies to our own liberal society* just as well.

To know what Marin is talking about in her poem “Leprosarium” (p.11) one must simply understand what it means to be treated like a terrorist. “We live our lives beneath our scalps with the same ferocity/ as we can imagine in the bellies of African children.” What is meant by ‘like a terrorist’? The suspicion expressed openly in closed door meetings mandated by one’s institution’s security apparatus. Not even so far as Guantanamo Bay. Just as far as the Campus Security office at your local community college. It is interesting to note that the last existing ‘Leprosarium’ or Leper Colony is in Romania, Marin’s native country. The Leper and the Communist had much in common in the Western Liberal Democracies in the 20th Century. This new century has placed the government target on the head of Terrorists now. Terrorism, a code word for Islamic Fundamentalism in this Liberal Democracy, has it’s national examples like Communism had in Romania, Yugoslavia, and Poland. Afghanistan under control of the Taliban, and the Islamic State or IS in what was once Eastern Syria and Western Iraq.

How can Marin speak to the heart of the totalitarianism of a liberal democracy? How can she tell a United States citizen how they feel? How can she talk about death and have someone here think of Freddie Gray**, or think of Fred Hampton**, or think of any number of names that have been covered up or forgotten so that America’s business-as-usual is maintained. It is her experience with the government “that exercis[ed] dictatorial control over many aspects of [her] life.” (Dictionary.com, “Totalitarian”). That razor’s edge that crops up in her poetry when she questions if a metaphor should be wrung by the neck (“The Chess Match”, p.29). It all culminates in a collection that speaks to the power of poetic verse to speak to the truth of  power.


*liberal - Strictly in the sense of classical liberalism which prizes individual rational action and thought over collective or corporate will. In our liberal society these ideals are obviously corrupted in the name of government's political authority and the economic authority of the corporation.

**Freddie Carlos Gray Jr. - Killed by Baltimore Police while in custody for possession of an alleged illegal "switchblade knife".
**Fred Hampton - Killed by Chicago Police and agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation during a politically motivated raid on his residence due to his leadership position within the Black Panther Party.