G by Klara du Plessis and Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi

Creative expression in Canada’s heritage languages, which is to say those languages that exist on the peripheries beyond the country’s two official languages, reminds us that Canada is a place of polyglots—something we often (and conveniently) forget. When authors have ventured into this territory in the past, it has mostly been to explore a connection to the languages of Europe, not to the Indigenous languages of this place or to languages from other regions of the world. That sits comfortably with a colonial origin story that does not want to acknowledge the multiple histories and legacies of the modern world we have created. We hear these languages spoken in cafés and on the street, or in friends’ homes, but relegate them to background noise. As a speaker of at least one of these heritage languages (Afrikaans), it is heartening to see an increasing number of books (and magazines like The Polyglot) in which writers engage with a (linguistic) world beyond Europe. On the page, we cannot ignore our connectedness to these languages or deny their existence as we might when they exist only as sound. What G demonstrates so beautifully, is how the sound of these languages can shape our perception of the world.

What G demonstrates so beautifully, is how the sound of these languages can shape our perception of the world.

In G, Klara du Plessis and Khashayar “Kes” Mohammadi look at a single sound that connects two parts of the world that we rarely imagine in proximity, Iran and South Africa. They do so by exploring the voiceless uvular fricative and its close cousin, the voiced velar fricative, which are presented phonetically by the Greek letters chi (x) and gamma (ɣ) and are generally transposed into a roman alphabet as ch (e.g., loch) or kh (e.g., Khalil). In Afrikaans and other Germanic languages, both sounds are presented by the letter g (as in goed—good, or the subtly different gat—hole). This is an oversimplification of a very complex sound, but a brief introduction to the sound does help to ground the unfamiliar reader somewhat as they enter this text that moves fluidly through sound and language.

They do so by exploring the voiceless uvular fricative and its close cousin, the voiced velar fricative, which are presented phonetically by the Greek letters chi (x) and gamma (ɣ) and are generally transposed into a roman alphabet as ch (e.g., loch) or kh (e.g., Khalil). In Afrikaans and other Germanic languages, both sounds are presented by the letter g (as in goed—good, or the subtly different gat—hole).

The sound produced by both the letters chi and gamma are often considered guttural and unlovely, and this is a perception that is broken down in innovative ways in the translingual poetics that inform in this book. My own use of the term “translingual poetics” relies on both Du Plessis’s use of it in her work and Sarah Dowling’s definition in Translingual Poetics: Writing Personhood Under Settler Colonialism (2018):

“…translingual poetics refers to poetry that is self-consciously situated between languages and that attends to the complex processes of domination and refusal that can be observed from the discursive context of each.”

The three sections of the collection show the nature of the authors’ collaboration well: the poems in the first and third sections are written by the poets individually, with the authors providing commentary and feedback on each others’ writing. The middle section, G, is a collaborative fugue in which the contrapuntal insertion of Persian and Afrikaans reminds us constantly of the Indo-European origins of both these languages, and of fact that the bond that binds us still is language. Since I do not speak Persian, I cannot comment on Mohammadi’s processes in the way I am able to do with Du Plessis’s contributions, so unfortunately my subsequent remarks are weighted in favour of Du Plessis’s contributions.

Regardless of whose contributions I have foregrounded because of my own linguistic shortcomings, it is the polyphonic harmony that the authors create through their collaboration that is of interest more than the literal translation of the words.

Regardless of whose contributions I have foregrounded because of my own linguistic shortcomings, it is the polyphonic harmony that the authors create through their collaboration that is of interest more than the literal translation of the words. Often Du Plessis does not work with the literal meaning of an Afrikaans word, but with the sound-associations that arise from it (or part of it, as she homes in on a morpheme or a homophone rather than the word itself). The result is a surprising flight of fancy or an image that strains against the perceived or accepted meaning of a word. I read G in the context of writing in a country where you do not exist primarily in your native tongue, which inevitably led me to thinking about language philosophically. We exist in a time of fundamental change that is often occasioned by migration. Mobility in a capitalist, postcolonial world (whether forced or not) can lead to a loss of our sense of space and identity as we adapt to the changes and transformations in the world around us. G is, on one level, about trying to understand the metamorphosis that occurs within during this process of migration and resettlement.

As I read the book, I could not help but call to mind Antjie Krog’s A Change of Tongue (2009), in which the title is a reference to the way translation is not just about conveying words from one language to another, but about learning to understand the people who use both the source and the target language. G reaches for that same sense of common understanding. In my reading, G came to be about the connections that exist between languages, about the aurality (and orality) of language and literature, and the instability of meaning. By breaking apart language(s), the authors succeed in destabilizing our sense of being and create space along the fault lines of language where we can begin to reconstruct meaning and reach for a renewed sense of common humanity.

G is, on one level, about trying to understand the metamorphosis that occurs within during this process of migration and resettlement.

Klara du Plessis is a poet, scholar, and literary curator. Her debut poetry collection, Ekke, won the 2019 Pat Lowther Memorial Award and her critical writing received Arc Poetry Magazine‘s 2022 Critic?s Desk Award. Welcoming collaborative formations, her book-length narrative poem, Hell Light Flesh, was adapted and produced as a mono-opera film with composer Jimmie LeBlanc, premiered at the International Festival of Films on Art in 2023. Klara develops an ongoing series of experimental and dialogic literary events called Deep Curation, an approach which posits the poetry reading as artform. She holds a PhD in English Literature, and lives in Montreal and Cape Town.

Khashayar “Kess” Mohammadi is a queer, Iranian born, Toronto-based poet, writer and translator. They are the winner of the 2021 Vallum Poetry Prize and the author of two previous poetry collections. G, in collaboration with Klara Du Plessis is their third book.

Publisher: Palimpsest Press (September 16, 2023)
Paperback 8″ x 5″ | 80 pages
ISBN: 9781990293542

Peter Midgley

Peter Midgley is a bilingual writer and editor from Edmonton. Over the course of thirty years, he has worked as a freelance editor, festival director, university lecturer, managing editor, acquisitions editor, clerk of court, bartender, actor, janitor, and door-to-door salesman. This experience has given him enough material for more than a dozen books. His latest book, let us not think of them as barbarians (NeWest Press), was shortlisted for the Stephan G. Stephansson Award in 2019.