A Story of a Place

For a lot of these poems, I feel as though a place becomes personified as a person or identification for a people and their set of values (this seems to be the case with  Saadi Youssef in "America, America" where he address America as though it were an entity in and of itself) or it becomes symbolic of a feeling. Of the four we read the one that stuck out to me the most was, "The Story of My Country," and I believe this is because it doesn't exist within the binary of criticism/adoration. If anything this would exist right outside of it, where there is a love for where one comes from but also a recognition of it's faults that is not a criticism so much as a footnote. Being American, I read the poem with the mindset that these words were or could be about my country, but I don't think that this lens in anyway alters the poet's feelings or intent. 

What helps this particular poem (Asadullah Habib, "The Story of My Country," pg 400) is the background of the story - which here is used to mean the documentation (or fabrication) of the evolution of a place or past - and I say this because it frames the (for lack of a better term) information to come as something that is an account, it's constantly changing, an allowance for me as a reader to understand what is said as a narrative. To elaborate, the implication of a story being told adds a certain layer of accessibility that helps the text become relatable. Another way of thinking about it is reading an Alexander Hamilton biography versus going to see the musical. Both contain generally the same amount of facts but one is a narrative and uses elements of storytelling in order to get a point across, the other is just...words. So in approaching this poem I didn't read it as someone telling me facts about their country but rather inviting me for a story about it. 

The relevance of the story is that I believe this is how this poem creates a part of it's own meaning, within the framework of the story (which begins with the title) we go into the poem as it's story is being written.

"The story of my country is written on it's jungles and deserts -" 

So we travel with the poet through the making of meaning of his country and are allowed to see that story unfold. We learn that his country is it's own book (of disasters) or perhaps a (beautiful) poem without end (the juxaposition in these two sentences helps eliminate the binary I previously mentioned) it's a hymn, we learn what flowers grow, and go back to reflect on it's fractures; and we end with our poet's frustrations over this binary. He asks, who will be there to tell the story of my country, the good and the bad? And more importantly as it is a story, who will be there to care or listen? 

The place in this poem stands for it's own remembrance which means unlike a personification, a feeling, or a symbol, the poet treats this place as a story that needs to be told. It is very much itself, which I can only hope to mean that his country  - wherever it may be - is not a placeholder for meaning, there are no metaphors, the place is just supposed to exist and go on from and by the people who have lived through it's trials.