Half in the Sun: a West Coast Mennonite Writers’ Anthology

by Helen Rose Pauls

An anthology of west coast Mennonite writing, Half in the Sun, should be available by October. We interviewed two of those who helped bring this idea to fruition, Robert Martens and Len Neufeldt.

How, when and why did this idea come about?

Robert: The idea came at a poets' evening when Elsie Neufeld quietly suggested an anthology of west coast Mennonite writers. Her idea immediately struck home with me. Something just felt right. Besides, with so much ethnic writing happening in Canada, and indeed globally, it seemed like an idea whose time had come. It was time for us West Coast writers to shed any false Mennonite humility, to stand up and say, "Hey, there's talent out here too."

Len: This idea had been in my mind for a long time, and Elsie's message offered the first suggestion that getting a West Coast Menno literary anthology project underway was actually being considered and that Elsie would be the driving force.

How did the search for writers take place?

Robert: We set about forming a committee of five individuals: Maryann Jantzen, Elsie Neufeld, Leonard Neufeldt, Louise Bergen Price, and myself. We sent out invitations to Mennonite west coast writers with whom we were already familiar, asking them if they'd be willing to contribute some writing, and if they could pass on the news. Very early on, we vowed, given our Mennonite experience with guilt and humility, never to call for "submissions." (Unfortunately, in at least one of the versions of our invitations, the word seems to have re-insinuated itself. You can't escape your past.)

This turned into a typically Mennonite relational process, with a cousin knowing an in-law whose friend knew a friend whose sister went to school with someone who was a writer. The project seemed almost to take off on its own, as Mennonite networking performed its magic. But this is not to negate the very hard work involved, particularly on the part of Elsie Neufeld, who approached the project with the incredible work ethic appropriated from centuries of Mennonite culture. Elsie scanned literary journals and books for writers with Mennonite names - recognizing those names is another advantage, I suppose, of living as part of this ethnic history. It wasn't always that easy. Names like Campbell and Tournemille are decidedly un­Mennonite, but the roots were there.

And the roots were showing. We've debated what it means to be Mennonite - ethnic? religious? cultural? - but that is something we'll never be able to clarify. At the core of a "Mennonite" individual there seems to be something recognizable to another Mennonite. And this seems true even when there are great differences in values and beliefs. Something from the heart, maybe the belly, that shouts "Mennonite" - and then, true to tradition, in humility, decrescendos the shout to a whisper.

Len: On November 7, 2003, Elsie sent out the description of our "Proposed Anthology of West Coast Mennonite Writing" to possible contributors and friends. At this point Elsie demonstrated amazing
detective powers in finding numerous additional names of potential contributors, many of them talented emerging writers unknown to Mennonite or literary circles in B.C. Close to 45 writers submitted work.
We discovered that the Mennonite identification was a drawing card, whether the authors were practicing Mennonites, were affiliated with other groups, or were unaffiliated. Sharon Butala, one of Canada's
foremost literary authors who has written the introduction to this anthology observes that " Mennonite identifiers bleed through the words of many of the writings included, perhaps most".

There is a theme of bitterness and anger running through much of published Mennonite writing. Did you find this theme running through west coast Mennonite writing as well?

Robert: On a Sunday afternoon in Feb. of 2004, Elsie and Walter Neufeld welcomed to their home on Sumas Mountain a large and lively group of west coast Mennonite writers. Over wine and cheese, and
possibly platz (memory fails me, but no Mennonite gathering would be complete without platz), we read our poetry and prose to each other, were moved, shed the occasional tear, talked rather hopelessly
about what "Mennonite" means - but what I remember most of all was the laughter.

Laughter of course is very Mennonite. One needs only to think of all the Low German jokes told over the years, and many of them carried a bite. But Mennonite writing in past decades has frequently been
morose, even guilt-ridden, as writers sought to dissociate themselves from the very real abuses perpetrated by members of their ethnic community.

Robert (cont’d) Our group of west coast writers, however, seemed much more at ease with their past. The difficulties were frankly acknowledged - we weren't kidding ourselves - and then often gave way to
some sort of acceptance. Perhaps it has something to do with the differences between Mennonites themselves - our west coast writers mostly have a Russländer background, while Mennonite writers in
previous decades often have had another history. Perhaps it has to do with a growing confidence among Mennonite writers, a feeling that the struggle with the ethnic community doesn't have to lead to
depression and isolation. Or it might simply be a new generation of writers. As I grew up in Mennonite Yarrow, the ethnic community was swiftly breaking down, and attitudes were opening up. Both sad and
joyful. But I've been told of previous Yarrow generations that were particularly "wounded" by the intolerance and oppressiveness of a closed community. This seems to have been the experience of Miriam
Toews, but it was not my own.

Andreas Schroeder, who was present that Sunday afternoon, remarked to me how pleasantly surprised he was at the good spirits of the individuals meeting that day - but frankly, as west coast Mennonite
writers had not gathered before this event in any major way, we didn't really know what to expect as the first writer walked to the podium. Our motto in this project, our Sprichwort, has been "you learn by
going."

Len: Readers will not see the work as Mennonite in the typical Prairie versions of recent decades: hard-edged, dark, brooding, angry, oppositional. Generally speaking, BC authors of Mennonite extraction do
not agonize over their inherited past or the communities and families in which they gained their identities.

What has impressed you most about this project?

Robert: The quality of the writing! The enthusiasm and good will. The pride in participating in this project.

This fall, watch for news about book launches for Half in the Sun. The book should be available in local bookstores and at the archives some time in October. This should be excellent and evocative reading,
for, as Robert Martens says in one of his poems, ‘a little Mennonite goes a long way.”

“These writers record and witness, laugh and sometimes weep, over the past that formed them. There are no stories of hate, or of rage at all the pleasure forbidden, lost and denied by such a faith, and only
the occasional expression of bitterness; there is a sadness, a yearning for the beauty of the simple certainty left behind forever, for the honesty of it, and even for the pain such simple honesty brought or caused
– the unimaginable suffering of the European past that cannot be denied, that must be assimilated by even the coolest teen, or the doctorate-owning, university-professor poet. And always with that unshakeable nostalgia for the imagined perfection of belief.

How to use all of this? What to make of it? It is unlikely the answers to such questions will come from pastors or grandparents or history books. What is required is this – this anthology of first-rate poems
and stories – where Mennonite artists struggle for meaning, for a truth, and to tell it slant. Give this to the children to read.”

Sharon Butala, from the introduction to Half in the Sun: Anthology of Mennonite Writing