Identity and its specific and general references-TD

Identity and its specific and general references

 The poets in this assignment used many cross cultural collisions to reference their identities in relation to the other people/ cultures around them.

Jeet Thayl transitioned through time using historical, generational, and directional clues to map out 45 years of his poet/personal journey. Thayl like many of this weeks poets uses religion to reflect the beginning of his identification . The opening line “ I was born in the Christian South of a subcontinent mad for religion”  establishes an initial context of how the journey began, how the journey begins for most of us.

The Story of my Country by Habib, repeats the religious  identifier “Zarathustra” in the poem. The repetition marks  a distinct feeling that reverberates throughout, giving the reader a history lesson on the origins of religion. Again the start of cultural identity ( culture being used here as the collective humanity that is managed by religious law) begins with religion. 

Another theme throughout the piece is the boundaries set by language, yet un broken by sound. Sound illocution through lyrics, both musical and poetic is used to bridge the poets to their identities in correspondence to the space and people around them.

Poetic language is  represented in Maqalih poem, Ma’reb Speaks, “ I come from there a crying qasida and an exiled letter.”  Maqalih’s choice of describing himself as coming from qasida, being and ancient Arab form of writing poetry, and  an exiled letter creates a relationship between the written word that has been detached or exiled. Does coming from a space that is ancient and exiled effect one’s contemporary identity?

The logistics of language/ written word can isolate and create confusion.   Hammad’s poem, break( rebirth), examines this in  the line “ so much language clustered so much damage cluttered morgue.” Hammad writes about is identity journey-again starting with religion –but also touching on the influence of the cluster of a cross cultural language collision that occurs when ones residency  combines many languages, dialects, and vernacular on one street. Hammad uses “bro language”  like “ nar”, urban slang like “yo”, Syrian words/ names like “gaza eyes” to manipulate the poem in order to deliver a sense of many identities clustered in one. Hammad’s line,  “sick ill music sickle self amnesia” implies that he is at least familiar enough with the African – American race enough to know the term “ sick” and “ill” mean something positive when referring to a beat, or line, and that sickle cell anemia  is a disease that is proportionately higher amongst Black people. Not to mention his word play was “ill”- sickle self amnesia= sickle cell anemia. Also the mention of Gaza eyes the non fiction book about a Syrian store owner who chooses to stay in New Orleans during Katrina and is arrested by the Us national guard  for supplying goods under suspicion of terrorist acts, adds to his “ foreign” place in Black culture being just as problematic to the powers that be because of his nationality.

Shit to write about, by Perdomo, had the most effect on me. Perdomo created a reader sensation  through the realistic interaction with his friend. It became personal, reminding me of  trips back home when you run into a good friend and they ask about your writing. They start by filling you in on all the “drama” of the block then they become a part of your next poem, a part of the “unauthorized autobiography” as Perdomo puts it. Weaved through this piece was also the love vibes. A man missing how his woman carved her  name in his back with the tips of her nails. That line you could feel, you were the woman tracing her name, or the man being lullabied to sleep by her hands.

The brother in the piece shares so much of his inner turmoil, he speaks with the writer, his friends about the “ scrambling nights and hand to mouth baby crying mornings”, that it becomes a short memoir, a snap chat of life as his knows it, both the pleasure and pain. At the end he asks, what profit can he gain from his pain…