Carolyne Van Der Meer
Carolyne Van Der Meer
Sensorial is a journey in sensory perception. The senses guide us through urban landscapes, animal connections and familial bonds as we consider who we are, where we are-both physically and metaphysically-and what truly matters. Sensorial proposes one set of responses to the never-ending data we process as we navigate through life. In particular, it considers aging and illness on the journey towards life's end-and examines gain and loss in the aggregate.
Journeywoman is the story in poems of the explicitly female journey made by women through girlhood, motherhood and beyond. The play on the word journeyman is intentional with the notion of completing an apprenticeship and seeking mastery of the trade implicit. The actual journey, both physical and intellectual, however, is what brings woman to that state of mastery and Journeywoman, through verse, provides just one itinerary. This unique collection explores the stages of womanhood as defined by this author: the waif, the mother and the crone. It invokes the stories of many to describe the process of mastering the craft of being female, with all its inherent complexities. The actual journey is both physical and intellectual and involves not only the physical alterations a woman undergoes through the changing of stages-the metamorphosing required to achieve mastery-but also true travel, the road embarked upon to achieve enlightenment, the attempt to grasp the intangible, the ethereal, the metaphysical, the disembodied, the sacred.
Motherlode: A Mosaic of Dutch Wartime Experience is Carolyne Van Der Meer's creative reinterpretation through short stories, poems, and essays of the experiences of her mother and other individuals who either spent their childhoods in Nazi-occupied Holland or were deeply affected by wartime in Holland. The book documents the author's personal journey as she uncovers her mother's past through their correspondence and discussion and through research in the Netherlands. Motherlode also considers mother-daughter relationships and the effect of wartime on motherhood.Motherlode is not about recording precise historical data; rather, it attempts to recover and interpret the complex emotions of the individuals growing up in wartime. The book is based on interviews with the author's mother and other Dutch Canadians, interviews with and letters from Canadian Jewish war veterans, and information provided by individuals with direct or indirect experience of the Dutch Resistance. The creative pieces explore onderduik (going into/being in hiding), life in an occupied country, the work of the Dutch Resistance, liberation, collective and individual cultural memory, and the way in which wartime childhoods shaped adulthood for these individuals.