After reading these sets of poems and previous poems, I find myself reiterating the notion that a place is no longer a geographic or physical location, but a memory or an image linked to a location. Like a home a child grows up in, there are images of childhood that are ingrained that makes you linked and connected to this place. As a result, places link and connect people, binding them to memories and images whether good or bad.
The complication is a place almost stops being just a physical space/location in these poems because they are expressed in memories, but gears towards the connection of the speaker to these places.
Like in John Murillo's "Ode to the Crossfader," I felt what it was like to listen to music and feel the rhythm and beats.
There were a few poems and lines that stood out to me because the images and feelings exuded a connection in how the words described imaged.
John Murillo (1971) “Ode to the Crossfader”The words portray the senses of listening and how it's connected to feeling. Suddenly, place is no longer physical because it's sort of this newly created world through music and empowerment of creating that zone or space through music.
Got this mixboard itchThis bassline liftedfrom my father’s dusty was Forty crates stackedin the back of the atticThis static in the head-phones Hum in the bloodThis deep-bass buckshotthump in the chest Got reasons and seasons pressed to both palms (76 - 77)
Similarly, his Murillo's other poem creates a new sense of place.
“Renegades of Funk - for Patrick Rosal”
When we were twelve, we taught ourselves to fly,To tuck the sky beneath our feet, to spinOn elbows, heads and backs. To run awayWhile standing still….
The walls are sprayed in gospel. This is for The ones who never made the magazines.Between breakbeats and bad breaks, broken homesAnd flat broke, caught but never crushed. The starsWe knew we were, who recognized the shineDespite the shade. We renegade in rhyme,In dance, on trains and walls. We renegadeIn lecture halls, the yes, yes, y’all’s in suits,Construction boots, and aprons. Out of workOr nine to five, still renegades. Those laid To rest, forgotten renegades. In dirtToo soon with Kuriaki, Pun, and Pac-I sing your names in praise, remember whyWhen we were twelve, we taught ourselves to fly. (79 - 81).
Creating space is by teaching yourself how to fly. Obviously, teaching yourself how to fly as a human is not physically possible, but the idea of teaching yourself to do so creates this space of your own. You're in a world and place that you've created to do the unimaginable. From the above passage, the word "renegade" is used often and this certain lifestyle seems to present that opportunity to do so - through church, bad home life, no home life, work, etc... I admit, that I am having a hard time deciphering between space and place because to me, it's almost interchangeable. Space is what can be created through place, and place is created through the space you make. However, if anyone has any thoughts or ideas on this, please feel free to share as it is a complex idea for me to grasp, or maybe I've just complicated it by overthinking it.
In other poems, I found space or place is sort of a haven. Memories of certain places are idealized but tarred by reality and history. Like in Rin's "Plucking Flowers," there are no longer open fields that were once visible as the scene is changed. Like the speaker once plucked flowers, it was like actually plucking her own neck.
Ishigaki Rin “Plucking Flowers”
Before my eyes an open field.Clover DandelionsPhiladelphia fleabaneWildflowers too poorTo decorate my desk at work…Farewell MarunouchiNow no open fields anywhereThe thin green stem that I once squeezedWas my own neck. (78 - 79)
Like I mentioned previously, Gurung's poem seems to mention how a place is like a haven, regardless if everything outside of this space seems so negative and a burden on the speaker. The temple is a place that lightens the load on the narrator, but once he or she leaves this temple, the world is a different place.
Toya Gurung “After a Turn Around the Temple”
I feel a prideno matter how troubled I might bemy mind is calm after a turn around the temple
as though all my worries are left there, though once I reach the street it seems that with this joy there comes growing another torment (511 - 512)
But as idealized as some places are, others can be the complete opposite. Toxic relationships with others can create a place that you have entered that entraps you. Like in Chin's piece, negative ideals of marriage or gendered obligations can push you into a box that is burdensome.
Marilyn Chin “Tonight While the Stars are Shimmering” (New World Duet)
The tribune says NOBODY WILL MARRY YOUYOU’RE ALREADY FORTY…Look, baby, baby, stop the car…A white man’s guilt, a white man’s love (143 - 144).
A lot of what I have to say next are based on personal experience. But growing up in a first generation/boat refugees/Catholic/traditional Vietnamese/Asian household, I learned that there are certain Asian cultures believe women should be obedient to men and or the family, as well as the negative stigma of being unmarried if you reach a certain age. As a result, the relationships create a detrimental space that dictates the livelihood of females when they are born. This space or place is created by values that are pressed upon young girls like myself growing up to behave certain ways and believe and do certain things growing up- thus my comment on how space and place are interchanging and complicated.
I never really thought of place as anything other than a geographical location or physical location, but as I read these poems, I felt inclined to see how place grows to be so much more abstract as history is scarred and people are left wounded emotionally and physically. Place changes people and memories of these places transforms and resonates so differently to every individual who has crossed the similar (if not the same) paths. I'm glad to have read these poems and fiddle with the idea of place and what it means in writing and to the writers and readers.
Tien,
ReplyDeleteAnother great post. I was wondering as i read it how you were going to explain the post-colonial aspect. You did such a good job of relating place and space, how memory and function created space. The poems you reflected upon are among my favorite in this series. When you discussed the generational disparities in your culture/family, then the post-colonial point was pretty prevalent. Nice work.
e