Blog 9 Identity

Language: Habib, 400, Maqalih,  Mahmud, 402, 425,  Thayil, 206; BB Hammad, 91+, Perdomo 23+,  Harris, 223;

Writing about identity and its specific and general references

The first thing that I noticed while reading the poems assigned through the book Language for a New Century, was that all the poems repeated personal pronouns such as “I” and “My”, which relates to the prompt of identity when thinking about personal identity.

In “Spiritus Mundi”, Thayil writes about the places he grew up, and then grew out of. Place can be a big part of identity I feel, particularly, places of existence and of growth, whether these be places with positive, negative, or a mixture of associations.

Habib also writes about place as a part of identity. Habib uses the phrase “my country” in each stanza(?) of his poem, claiming the location as a part of himself as if it were a part of his body. He describes its complexities with a familiarity as someone describing their own face, or the lines in their palms.

In Breakbeats, Perdomo writes a piece on a friend who talks about a loved one. The way it was written, with such detail, reminded me that at times one’s identity can sometimes lie in another’s. The familiarity with one another can become part of you. Some people say that this is unhealthy. I think it can be, but I don’t think it has to be. I personally have experienced both sides of the coin, both an unhealthy degradation of my own identity in favor of becoming someone who was merely a significant other, both due to various complications with mental illness and self-hatred, but I have also, at this point in my life, seen myself and my partner grow with each other and have our identities become ourselves plus love, rather than love minus ourselves, if that makes any sense. We lift each other up, making one another our best selves we can be.