Who Is You

Who Is You

Am I who I say I am or am I who you say I am?  Who is you?  Is you the world, the media, my neighborhood, my friends, the admissions or corrections officer?  Is it the sun or the sand in my shoe?  What or who determines the idea of me?

The poets we studied this week answer specifically through the possessive use of the words “my” and “mine” whereby they align themselves with the state, the land, the conflicts that define them and their families.  Habib begins the poem, The Story of My Country by the automatic association made through the claim of “my country.”  He calls his country through a number of metaphors.  It is a book, an old hymn, a burning garden.  Throughout the descriptions of his country, the thread remains consistent that it is his country.  By it being his country, he is it’s as well.

Jeet Thayil begins with the most primary understanding of identification and that is birth.  He “was born in the Christian South.”  His poem Spiritus Mundi, is titled after a term W.B. Yeats used “to describe the collective soul of the universe containing the memories of all time. From 'Spiritus Mundi,' Yeats believed, came all poets' inspiration.  https://www.quora.com/What-is-spiritus-mundi

            On the surface, the Latin words spiritus mundi inform the reader that a world spirit is about to be revealed through the poem that follows this title.  The poem takes the reader through the historical events of his country and the cities he’s lived in.  He specifies these existences through food and clothing customary to the area.  But he catches himself short of being an identifiable part of it when he demonstrates his inability to recall an entire summer of his time in it.  Perhaps his many moves from areas ruled by religion to “small buildings” like brownstones and walkups have also removed his sense of identification with his birthplace, hence his claiming the entire world for his identity as a world spirit.

There is another tactic of self-identifying used by the authors that shows up prominently in The BreakBeat Poets:  speaking through the code of language.  Suheir Hammad uses the word wa to represent we, what, where and probably other meanings which I can’t decipher because I don’t share the cultural background or community within which she thrives.  I discern its meaning along with “ana sawah wa thousand wa one nights wa ahwak” as expression meant for others who share her identity and as an outside reader, I can allow for not knowing, respectfully.

Willie Perdomo hits this point hard.  He’s from New York.  He’s from a Spanish-speaking place.  He’s from a place where his friends are more than street crews to be avoided, they are friends like brothers to be embraced.  When Krip asks for a poem, Perdomo gives the reader a previous poem then continues.  He gives us Krip and the battles he must wage to even claim the worth of his life, let alone the explorations of identity.

The trip to Rikers, the girl who might have been had she survived, the bodega he names Caridad’s Grocery and the names of the brothers in El Barrio all deliver the words of his surroundings and environment and familia (which is what is familiar) which is who he is - and what makes us.  He uses Spanish because that is one of the languages he and those around him know.  Identity for Perdomo is barrio, manos, (hermanos-brothers or manos-hands) and the danger of being Puerto Rican in New York.  It is an identity that is targeted, an identity he shares and one he’s learned to defend.  And love.