Identity, Narrative, and the Story

I'm happy to revisit "The Story of My Country" again because for me it really solidifies for me the purpose of the narrative. "Narrative" here meaning any type of story whether spoken or written. In this week's poem the recurring theme seems to be writing one's self into the narrative or speaking an experience into a type of existence. 

Look at the first line of every poem or it's title, 

"I was born" (Thayil)

"The Story of My Country" (Habib)

"I come from" (Maqualih) 

"Shit to Write About" (Perdomo)

Each of these poets is creating a narrative where their experience is the center, because of this we can assume that they are..for lack of a better term preserving a thought or a piece of existence in time. And each of those preservations are of themselves. Which is to argue that, a person's identity is rooted in the act of declaring a narrative. 

For example, babies technically have identities placed upon them, you can't necessarily say that these identities are their own or things that they'll agree with and because they can't speak or write they have no way of acknowledging or representing a fully realized self. Once that child is a few years older and begins to speak, they have a command over their own being. A control over their actions and how they begin to insert themselves into the world. Apply this mindset to writing about identity and the specific theme of "writing a narrative" or "telling a story" about oneself. 

By the act of participating in their voices these poets have in fact, solidified an identity. And preserved it around an experience. Because there is an "I' and it's going back to specific places, I get the impression that these poets identities are grounded (in part) in the ability to tell stories and the places from which those stories came. ("Place" here can mean an experience, a physical place, a feeling, etc.) 

I think this idea is particularly present in Perdomo's "Shit to Write About" where towards the end of the poem he and his friends are actually questioning how much their lives are worth in words. 

         "...if I wanted to write a book how much you think my life would be worth?"

This tells me that there is a power in being able to express an identity within a narrative. 

There's also an idea present across all these poems (which is a little more obvious) the identities present in these narratives don't simply exist they're built off specific experiences and within the poem these experiences manifest themselves in certain places, friends, traditions. So the identity lives and breathes in accordance to those experiences.

And the best example of this would be "When I Put My Hand In the Air It's Praise". The reason for this is because the experience presented is one that can be felt, reimagined and relived by the reader while also giving licences and agency to this particular identity. Which is a longer way of saying that because the experience is so true it makes sense and encourages the creation of an identity. Which I imagine would be fun and disbelieving.

Think of it this way:

I am this way because of this = EXPERIENCE + FEELING + LESSON LEARNED + ETC

And this is what that is = EXPERIENCE

And this is me expressing who I am = NARRATING EXPERIENCES = POEM