Last week's poems presented a challenge to me in thinking about how place and space could mean something, or how that meaning is produced for a person and a poet. Coming into this week's collection makes me think about how space expands. There are many similar themes, like how colonialism and occupation changes a place, and how place for people represents a lot of big stuff about family, home, and belonging. This week, though, there's one line from "After a Turn Around the Temple" (Language, Gurung 511), that really stands out to me:
"with this joy there comes growing/ another torment/ at first/ to die on the road/ and then gradually to live/ angry red-hot eyes and faces/ giant doors, neatly laid streets, filthy tea and/ a crossroads"
The crossroads represent this split and shift in what the poet is talking about. There's a weight and significance to the idea of the crossroads, and maybe not being able to turn back. The "imagery of giant doors and neatly laid streets" recalled Ishigaki Rin's "Plucking Flowers". In this poem, like "After a Turn Around the Temple", there's joy and tranquility initially and then a split. In "Plucking Flowers", there's the war (fire, destruction) and then the economic boom which produces skyscrapers. The infrastructure/architecture was the link between the two poems, as well as the really poignant pinpoint "crossroads" moment.
"After a Turn Around the Temple" also has this great moment with place in the first and last stanzas:
I feel a pride
a structure so large
so many rooms
endless staircases
a multitude of guardian animals at the doors
///////
nevertheless I feel a pride
neither of stone
nor of wood
nor of earth
What is the place? It's represented as a place with architectural features, like place in abundance, but then we're told that the feeling of "pride" is not made of stone or wood or earth. Even after the uncertainty and the "torment" in the middle of the poem, there's this enduring place of pride/pride of place. So jumping from that:
“Renegades of Funk” by John Murillo also deals with an enduring sense of place and also what meaning it holds fast as the place itself changes.
VI.
And we knew nothing but what eyes could see--
The burnt-out liquor stores and beauty shops,
Mechanics’ lots abandoned, boarded up
Pastrami shacks where, seemed like every day,
We used to ditch class, battle Centipedes
And Space Invaders...gone. Or going fast.
What eyes could see was flux--the world, and us,
And all we knew...like smoke. So renegade
We did, against erasure, time, and --hell,
We thought--against the Reaper, too. We left
Our names in citadels, sprayed hieroglyphs
In church. Our rebel yells in aerosol--
We bomb therefore we are. We break therefore
We are. We spit the gospel. Therefore, are.
The place itself has changed, the places are gone or going fast, "all we knew...like smoke." So they hold their ground with the theme "therefore we are...We are...Therefore, are."
So this week I see that: place changes, meaning remains and people matter to the place/place matters to people.
Yes! I'm interested in this notion of physical space and internal space, too. How they contract and contrast with each other as living organisms. The change colonialism brings also changes the internal structures of the heart, of the family.
ReplyDeleteNice Molly, you used two different examples poems to come to the same idea:
ReplyDeleteWhat is the place? It's represented as a place with architectural features, like place in abundance, but then we're told that the feeling of "pride" is not made of stone or wood or earth. Even after the uncertainty and the "torment" in the middle of the poem, there's this enduring place of pride/pride of place.
That statement reminds me of the exile, or the refugee who clings to the notion of a specific place at a specific time. I am also interested how "forces" change place, rather than only its image in the minds of those who have/had lived there.
well done,
e
Hello, I like (and agree with) your observation regarding people and place, especially the idea that one matters to the other. I would push that a little further and suggest that the relationship between the two is necessary in order for the definition of place to change and evolve. People have tremendous influence on the concept of place, our experiences and thoughts shape how we see and define something as complex as place. I believe this is why 'place' changes (from person to person, etc...) because our individualized influence gives a different perspective.
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