Scientific Marvel

Marked by rhythmic drive, humour, and surprise, Undi’s poems consider what is left out from the history and ongoing realities of Winnipeg, Manitoba, and the west. Firmly grounded in the local, the arresting poems in Chimwemwe Undi’s debut collection Scientific Marvel are preoccupied with Winnipeg the way a Winnipegger is preoccupied with Winnipeg: with history and immigration; race and gender; anxieties and close observation. Taking its title from a beauty school in downtown Winnipeg that closed in 2017 after nearly 100 years of operation, Scientific Marvel approaches the prairies from the point of view of a person who is often erased from the prairies’ idea of itself.

“I mean my country the way / my country means my country / and what else is there to say? / I am bad and brown / and trying. Nothing here / belongs to me or could / or ever will.” This is poetry that touches on challenging topics—from queerness and colonialism to racism, climate rage, and decolonization—while remaining close to specific lived experience: the so-called ‘smaller’ things about self, art, dance parties and pop culture, relationships, and love.