Revisiting questions i asked my mother in Conversation with Di Brandt

Abstract

Reissued in Fall 2015 by Turnstone Press, Di Brandt's questions i asked my mother explores the ethical, moral, and existential queries of a lyric persona simultaneously youthful and adult, a woman whose perspective constantly oscillates between her footing in the past—surrounded by her family in Reinland, Manitoba—and in the immediate present, at a time when she experiences her distance from those times, places, and people. In its time, these aspects of the text brought Brandt into dialogue with topical issues such as second-wave feminism and Canadian multiculturalism. Thirty years later, Brandt’s sequence retains its power because of that dialogue. This interview with Brandt was conducted in June and July 2015.