It is difficult for me to fully express my love for Whereas. Love may not even be a sufficient word for how I feel when I read this work. Enamored, awestricken, humbled all might be better words to describe what I feel about this masterpiece of a book! Long Soldier’s Whereas explodes language and conceptions of language in new and impossible ways. There is an examination of, conversation with, condemnation of, and at times recreation of language used in past and present to inflict violence and maintain theft by the U.S. government on indigenous persons and lands. I found myself specifically drawn into the section titled Whereas Statements. Particularly the instances which speak of language explicitly. For instance,
If I’m transformed by language, I am often
crouched in footnote or blazing in title.
Where in the body do I begin; (61)
My eyes left me, my soldiers, my two scouts to the unseen. And because language is the immaterial I never could speak about the missing so perhaps I cried for the invisible, what could not see, doubly. (65)
Whereas this alters my concern entirely— how do I language a collision arrived at through separation? (70)
Man that last question gives me chills. The concept of how to “language” something as in how to craft words from senseless violence, to make speech from the speechlessness of a moment/a history. Language is at the heart of this work. Legalese, stolen language, the language of apologies (and non-apologies). Long Soldier navigates language within this book by crafting pieces that show the potentials of language as well as to expose its flaws, the moments when it cant be used or trusted.
I also noticed that throughout the book I felt as though space was its own element within each piece. Whether it was the taking up of space through prose poetry or leaving blank spaces through the omission of words/phrases, this book creates space for what has previously and effectively been cast to the margins. Take for instance the poem 38 (pages 49-53), closing out the first section this poem outlines and details a violent event that had been given no space. Physically, within the book, this poem takes up many pages which is one mode of demonstrating or creating the space for something of importance, something necessary. Each line is a single sentence set apart from the rest, they can stand alone and force the reader to sit with each line no matter the brutality there must be a pause, a space, between one statement to the next. The line that I most had to contend with while reading this poem was “This was the same week that President Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation.” Grappling with the continued reality of the hypervisibility of violence against Black bodies and the seeming progress made on behalf of Black folks as a force that takes up space in this country, a tool that is used to contribute to the invisibilizing of the violence against Indigenous bodies within this space.
I want to refrain from stating that this book somehow “fills in the blanks” of American history because I feel that to say that would not be giving full credit to this work, yet there are moments where the concept of filing in the blank space is made apparent. For example, on page 83 their are literal blank spaces in a federal document made by the omission of words and placement of brackets. The words that fill these blanks appear on page 85 after a poem about the near impossibility of full repair or reparations for Native persons due to the lack of roots to repair. The image given in that poem is that of a root canal, the pulling of a tooth from its root, never able to grow back because it’s all been stripped away. The words on page 85, the ones that fill in the blanks on page 83 make up what might be called the tenets of a culture. This creation of blank space with in the federal document made me think of the emptiness of such words, the very foundation of America is built on these empty words and inactions. While the words on page 85 demonstrate what makes a culture they are nonspecific, which adds to this notion of emptiness. Making me question what are the customs, the beliefs, the traditions, and where have they gone? “Everything is in the language we use” (51).
Friday, March 29, 2019
Thoughts on Whereas by Layli Long Solider
Layli Long Solider did more than just write a poetry book, they educated their readers, brought light to forgotten or unmentioned history, and defined concepts that some may not pay any attention to. I was in awe reading this particular reading for this week, it made me venture out of the book and dig for more. This book prompts the reader to do outside research and explore a history no longer talked about. I could not just pick one or two poems to talk about in my reflection but seven that completely wow'd me yet I will only talk about my favorite three.
The first poem, "leftist," felt like a definition lesson, explaining what a leftist is with an example and structure to the poem. I found this one enlightening because it held strength, you could argue with it but you could not defeat a definition. I enjoyed the line "support of social change to create egalitarian society." This line jumps at the reader, it defends a leftist and does not want to hear any other definition.
The second poem on pg 26, brings in a little from the poet, noting that not all (or any) of the work they write is meant to be understood by the readers. This poem explores the identity of writing to Long Solider. This poem reminds me of when readers try to break down what the poet is saying but can misinterpret words/sentences in their work when the piece is really only meant for the writer to cherish and admire. This poem brings strength to the poet, putting down that it is only meant for them to remember.
The third poem, "Whereas" on pg 78 was the one that you could not stop reading and dropped your jaw when you got to the end of it. Long Solider brings in either their experience or a shared experience with others. This poem felt like a story being told all while thinking in your head For example, I imagined this as someone talking to Long Solider and this piece was their thought all while this other person was talking to them. The poem is quite expressive, hearing someone tell the poet they did not know Indians could feel. This poem is from the last collection of the book titled "Whereas" where every poem begins with "whereas." In the beginning of the collection, Long Solider gives insight to an act of apology made my President Obama which was never read as an apology and thus hurt the community it was meant for because while the apology was written, it was never directed to anyone who it belonged to. This act was meant to be a kind of resolution to the abuse and mistreatment that occurred and continues to. The poem on pg 82 addresses the "concept" of resolution and mocks this apology because anyone could drop in the word resolution and it still would not do the job.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this poetry book, it is one that we need more of, one we need to show our friends and everyone around us. Layli Long Solider wanted people to hear their voice and us reading this and supporting them is doing just that. Thank you Layli, your words are heard and alive.
The first poem, "leftist," felt like a definition lesson, explaining what a leftist is with an example and structure to the poem. I found this one enlightening because it held strength, you could argue with it but you could not defeat a definition. I enjoyed the line "support of social change to create egalitarian society." This line jumps at the reader, it defends a leftist and does not want to hear any other definition.
The second poem on pg 26, brings in a little from the poet, noting that not all (or any) of the work they write is meant to be understood by the readers. This poem explores the identity of writing to Long Solider. This poem reminds me of when readers try to break down what the poet is saying but can misinterpret words/sentences in their work when the piece is really only meant for the writer to cherish and admire. This poem brings strength to the poet, putting down that it is only meant for them to remember.
The third poem, "Whereas" on pg 78 was the one that you could not stop reading and dropped your jaw when you got to the end of it. Long Solider brings in either their experience or a shared experience with others. This poem felt like a story being told all while thinking in your head For example, I imagined this as someone talking to Long Solider and this piece was their thought all while this other person was talking to them. The poem is quite expressive, hearing someone tell the poet they did not know Indians could feel. This poem is from the last collection of the book titled "Whereas" where every poem begins with "whereas." In the beginning of the collection, Long Solider gives insight to an act of apology made my President Obama which was never read as an apology and thus hurt the community it was meant for because while the apology was written, it was never directed to anyone who it belonged to. This act was meant to be a kind of resolution to the abuse and mistreatment that occurred and continues to. The poem on pg 82 addresses the "concept" of resolution and mocks this apology because anyone could drop in the word resolution and it still would not do the job.
Overall, I really enjoyed reading this poetry book, it is one that we need more of, one we need to show our friends and everyone around us. Layli Long Solider wanted people to hear their voice and us reading this and supporting them is doing just that. Thank you Layli, your words are heard and alive.
Sunday, March 24, 2019
There are More Beautiful Things Than Beyonce....late post
So What...
so what if I read this amazing testament backwards?
I didn't but if I had it would certainly be as monumental!
"Why do you get up in the morning"
is the last line of this collection but it is reflected in every poem...
it would be expected to say, Morgan Parker's work embodies intersectionality but that verges on reductive.
Her work embodies her unique perspective...fresh, raw, beautiful, complex...her own.
Yet as she herself said- she writes for others- she shares her heart, her thoughts, her insecurities and her magic- She illuminates my dark corners of "privilege...strips me bare...and I lose my words
I am not worthy to define hers.
"there are more beautiful things than Beyoncé: self awareness
leftover mascara in clumps, recognizing a pattern
This is for all the grown women whose countries hate them and their brothers
Who carry knives in their purses down the street
maybe they will turn to air or news or brown flower petals"
It is heartbreaking- I cannot deny the truth and I feel powerless to change this reality...
and I ask myself "what good could ever come from the power of privilege?" since I do not know, certainly I must continue to learn how to best advocate for justice...unlearn systemic evil...
I can shut the fuck up and bow down before the skill and rage and beauty of others...
I can keep looking at the issues and speak out about inequality, hate....Shit! enough about me already
let's talk about tempo- there is a rhythm to Parker's work- sometimes it feels like a conversation with someone interacting with the world...maybe they are talking on the phone- texting definitely...
while the TV plays and then they are sharing a YouTube video with you...
or are you even there?
but she is sharing her intimate thoughts...she worldbuilds! she expresses womaness ...she is bad ass, brilliant, so skillfully dropping truth bombs!
I am mesmerized by her paired back language which leaves no doubts...quick witted, yet devoid of jaded bitterness...her candor with the level and variety of self care...be it bad drugs, pharmaceuticals, tall boys, bubble baths...its a crazy world- love yourself- love each other- be brave- be you....
so what if I read this amazing testament backwards?
I didn't but if I had it would certainly be as monumental!
"Why do you get up in the morning"
is the last line of this collection but it is reflected in every poem...
it would be expected to say, Morgan Parker's work embodies intersectionality but that verges on reductive.
Her work embodies her unique perspective...fresh, raw, beautiful, complex...her own.
Yet as she herself said- she writes for others- she shares her heart, her thoughts, her insecurities and her magic- She illuminates my dark corners of "privilege...strips me bare...and I lose my words
I am not worthy to define hers.
"there are more beautiful things than Beyoncé: self awareness
leftover mascara in clumps, recognizing a pattern
This is for all the grown women whose countries hate them and their brothers
Who carry knives in their purses down the street
maybe they will turn to air or news or brown flower petals"
It is heartbreaking- I cannot deny the truth and I feel powerless to change this reality...
and I ask myself "what good could ever come from the power of privilege?" since I do not know, certainly I must continue to learn how to best advocate for justice...unlearn systemic evil...
I can shut the fuck up and bow down before the skill and rage and beauty of others...
I can keep looking at the issues and speak out about inequality, hate....Shit! enough about me already
let's talk about tempo- there is a rhythm to Parker's work- sometimes it feels like a conversation with someone interacting with the world...maybe they are talking on the phone- texting definitely...
while the TV plays and then they are sharing a YouTube video with you...
or are you even there?
but she is sharing her intimate thoughts...she worldbuilds! she expresses womaness ...she is bad ass, brilliant, so skillfully dropping truth bombs!
I am mesmerized by her paired back language which leaves no doubts...quick witted, yet devoid of jaded bitterness...her candor with the level and variety of self care...be it bad drugs, pharmaceuticals, tall boys, bubble baths...its a crazy world- love yourself- love each other- be brave- be you....
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
HACHA
I have to admit, I wish I had had a hard copy of this book.
It is deeply upsetting, although not surprising at all, that nothing about Guam was ever taught to me in school, and if it was, I’m sure it was just in reference to the “strategic” army base in the Pacific. The preface helped me get oriented, and I did a lot of googling to catch up on this history that was glossed over in all of my history classes.
There is so much to read into in this books use of different languages. The English represents the obliteration of Native language by the US, it represents the pressures of assimilation, Americanization. And this was clearly violent and forceful. Children were sent to mission schools, people were tricked into speaking chamorro and then punished for it (37). Chamorro, the native language, is used throughout the text in brackets, remaining “insular” like a little island in an “ocean of English” (12). That, to me, was incredibly poetic and an incredible example of how something formal like brackets can be so intentional, and so full of meaning that reflects the rest of works content. There is also Spanish peppered throughout the text, representing Spanish colonization, as well. Some Japanese. With the back and forth, the competing languages (I think there was even some Latin Catholic prayers?) compete with each other, mix with each other
One poem, from ACHIOTE is titled for a plant that was brought to Guam by Spanish colonists but probably originated from the Mayas. This represents the wide reach of the colonization by the Spanish: colonizing central and South America, taking things, like plants, for their own, and bringing them to other colonies. And then the achiote is something that the speaker’s grandmother prepares and uses, so then maybe it becomes culturally specific to Guam in many ways today, but how confusing is that? Maybe it’s a reclamation of a plant that was brought by colonizers, or maybe it is used but is still tinged with the violence of colonization, not meant to be growing there. One line says “You can find achiote powder in the ethnic foods aisle of some grocery stores” (17). Of course, all “ethnic foods” get maybe one aisle, lumped together. This poem about one plant told such a complex story.
Another really intentional move I appreciated was the use of “from” in the titles of poems / sections. In the preface, Perez writes:
On some maps, Guam doesn’t exist; I point to an empty space in the
Pacific and say, “I’m from here.” On some maps, Guam is a small,
unnamed island; I say, “I’m from this unnamed place.” On some maps,
Guam is named “Guam, U.S.A.” I say, I’m from a territory of the United
States.” On some maps, Guam is named, simply, “Guam”;
I say, “I am from ‘Guam’.”
The sentence “I point to an empty space in the / Pacific and say, “I’m from here.”’ It sums so much up for me. There is pain in being left out, “unincorporated”, forgotten but still colonized. Completely exploited and then left off of the map. Or named simple as a territory. The Marianas were named by the Spanish, I learned that in this book. The marks of colonization are deep. Will they ever get renamed?
I got way off track here, I wanted to point out the use of “from”. I’m from, I’m from, I’m from. Perez cites multiple definitions, giving the word many different layers of meaning. It “indicates a particular time or place as a starting point”, suggests a “cause” or “source”, and implies a “separation, removal, or exclusion”. Of course, If one is telling someone one is from Guam, pointing to a map, they probably are no longer there. There is an implied displacement, rift, gap. All the poem titles are from some thing or another. “Each poem carries the ‘from’ and bears its weight and resultant incompleteness” (12). Clearly every little word in this work holds the ache, the cellular trauma that stems from Guam’s centuries of colonization.
Yearnings for an Indigenous Past through Language
What is relevant in this book, is the lack of imagination. What is beckoning off the pages is a yearning to remember an indigenous past that has been strategically stolen from Perez's people, and to retell history from a perspective that has essentially been killed off or repressed. What I got from Hacha was the multiplicity of ways in which violence was enacted on the Chamoru natives by both the America and Japanese in the colonization of Guam. The violences include: The erasure of language, the killing of landmasses and animals, erecting statues and symbols to commemorate colonizers (false idols), and placing borders/sections to facilitate power and control over bodies and land.
Early in the book, Perez does an excellent job at embodying the properties of the achiote plant to assemble for us how violence impacts of the land. On page 17, he writes: "you can find achiote powder in the ethnic food section aisle of some grocery stores." When seeing the words powder, I think of the word "debased" In a sense the plant has been pummeled down from its naturally organic form, and subsidized into a form that can be mass marketed, produced, and consumed by people who aren't indigenous to the land. By transitioning achiote from a plant to a powder is a metaphor for the peoples of that land have been pummeled down as well. There are a couple more references to the plant that really stick out to me as well, on page 18, the line "an attractive [the achiote][ pink flower made it a popular hedge pant in colonial gardens" is another examples of how plants that have cultural, social, and purposes are bastardized and simplified under colonial rule. How grandmother's response is so well put; "don't touch your eyes." She is literally saying don't touch your eyes after he has placed his on the vines, but the how under colonization, colonizers only value of the plant is for its aesthetic value.
There a few other lines that really run in me as I read the book, I was specifically interested in the poems regarding Sanvitores 1) "he explains how to minimize your shadow depending on the angle of the sun (37)" (I think this an excellent anecdote about how Chamoru children coped with the abuses of using their own language in the Christian schools), and "to change your eyes depending on the thing hunted (39)." This last line reminds me of conversation Shobha Rao had regarding humanity at this Wednesday's Writers Series. She was referring to how all humans, her included, have the capacity to enact great violence, and I feel this line echoes that truth. This line in conjunction with Shobha's idea encompasses that capacity, which means, colonization is the hunting of humans by other humans. It think this lines attempts to inform us how perspective is essential in determining which sides/borders of the violence you are on.
My favorite poem from this book is "from LISIENSAN GA'LAGO" (pg. 79), and I like it the most because Perez utilizes his native language to embody the true meaning of loss. He places the words of "with words, my people, my heart" in a small box to the very left of the page with predominately English words taking up space outside of it. The literal encasing of his native words compared to the sprawled nature of the English words remind me of the need for preservation of language under colonization. Because they are boxed, he may be saving them/protecting them from the violence of the world, but also may be alluding to how the minimization of these words have now become relic to very few in world. The first line of the poem reads "with words dispossessed," and I can't help of think who has the actual possession language. Language is essential to world building, the use of language is what makes us unique on this planet, but what I feel Perez is hinting to is how his identity in affiliation with his language is marred in larger cultural context because of the ideations of borders and territories.
With that in mind, I feel this book is a final battle cry from him to preserve the history and cultures of his people. In a sense, through poetry he is interacting in colonial structures (books, interviews, English language), but does so with the attempt to hold on to a memory. I think this book is an excellent historical reference and piece that should be considered when speaking about indigenous preservation and the affects colonization has on land, peoples, and language.
Early in the book, Perez does an excellent job at embodying the properties of the achiote plant to assemble for us how violence impacts of the land. On page 17, he writes: "you can find achiote powder in the ethnic food section aisle of some grocery stores." When seeing the words powder, I think of the word "debased" In a sense the plant has been pummeled down from its naturally organic form, and subsidized into a form that can be mass marketed, produced, and consumed by people who aren't indigenous to the land. By transitioning achiote from a plant to a powder is a metaphor for the peoples of that land have been pummeled down as well. There are a couple more references to the plant that really stick out to me as well, on page 18, the line "an attractive [the achiote][ pink flower made it a popular hedge pant in colonial gardens" is another examples of how plants that have cultural, social, and purposes are bastardized and simplified under colonial rule. How grandmother's response is so well put; "don't touch your eyes." She is literally saying don't touch your eyes after he has placed his on the vines, but the how under colonization, colonizers only value of the plant is for its aesthetic value.
There a few other lines that really run in me as I read the book, I was specifically interested in the poems regarding Sanvitores 1) "he explains how to minimize your shadow depending on the angle of the sun (37)" (I think this an excellent anecdote about how Chamoru children coped with the abuses of using their own language in the Christian schools), and "to change your eyes depending on the thing hunted (39)." This last line reminds me of conversation Shobha Rao had regarding humanity at this Wednesday's Writers Series. She was referring to how all humans, her included, have the capacity to enact great violence, and I feel this line echoes that truth. This line in conjunction with Shobha's idea encompasses that capacity, which means, colonization is the hunting of humans by other humans. It think this lines attempts to inform us how perspective is essential in determining which sides/borders of the violence you are on.
My favorite poem from this book is "from LISIENSAN GA'LAGO" (pg. 79), and I like it the most because Perez utilizes his native language to embody the true meaning of loss. He places the words of "with words, my people, my heart" in a small box to the very left of the page with predominately English words taking up space outside of it. The literal encasing of his native words compared to the sprawled nature of the English words remind me of the need for preservation of language under colonization. Because they are boxed, he may be saving them/protecting them from the violence of the world, but also may be alluding to how the minimization of these words have now become relic to very few in world. The first line of the poem reads "with words dispossessed," and I can't help of think who has the actual possession language. Language is essential to world building, the use of language is what makes us unique on this planet, but what I feel Perez is hinting to is how his identity in affiliation with his language is marred in larger cultural context because of the ideations of borders and territories.
With that in mind, I feel this book is a final battle cry from him to preserve the history and cultures of his people. In a sense, through poetry he is interacting in colonial structures (books, interviews, English language), but does so with the attempt to hold on to a memory. I think this book is an excellent historical reference and piece that should be considered when speaking about indigenous preservation and the affects colonization has on land, peoples, and language.
I also found it useful to look up the titles of the poems to create a starting point to launch my reading from. I didn't do this until I was almost done with the book, but throughout the entire thing I could not help but get a sense that titles were incredibly important, simple and complex, and very important. I finally looked up the words of the titles at the end cause I could not shake the feeling. I'm glad I did because even the definition of "from" (italicized) in every title, I got so much:
from:
[fruhm, from; unstressed fruh m]
preposition
unincorporated:
[uhn-in-kawr-puh-rey-tid
adjective
not combined into a single body or unit; not made part of; not included:
aerial root:
[âr′ē-əl]
A root that develops from a location on a plant above the surface of the earth or water, as from a stem. For example,some orchids have aerial roots that grow from their stems and absorb water directly from the air.
tide·land
/ˈtīdˌland/
noun
NORTH AMERICAN
plural noun: tidelands
- land that is submerged at high tide.I also felt to the titles that were untranslated or translated very late in the poems were incredibly successful because they had a way of disorienting me right from the beginning and suspended me in this feeling, making me hyper aware of Perez's words pacing.
Tuesday, March 19, 2019
HACHA
Violet Vasquez
March 19th, 2019
ENG 152- Dr. Abinader
In reading HACHA, I wasn’t sure what to expect, the preface really set the tone for me. Colonialism is no joke, and not an act from the past but a monster that is alive and well to the present day. The fragmented poem: from Stations of Crossing has an eerie reminder of Catholicism and it’s part in conquest. The constant mention of nature, was not one of beauty, but of loss, it was sad, and I began to reflect on what loss really means, more so, extinction. When a people do not have self determination or sovereignty, they are virtually non existence and on the verge of extinction, culturally. I have had some education on Guam and the Chamorro people, a colony of the US, what more proof of imperialism do we need?
Freedom is only given to a certain few, and even then it is broken into policies with regulations, so what is true freedom? So many spaces across the pages only gave light to this unfinished history. A mystery really as in some cases this island is not even charted on some maps, or even given the same name. I found myself thinking of their relation to the rest of the conquered civilizations by the Spanish, the Japanese, and today’s globalized capitalism, by the USA. This book of poems acts as a testimony, to the rest of the world of this islands’ enslavement. It is currently a military base, where the people have no right to clean water, their land, but can actively serve in our military, without promise of citizenship. Yet McKain can be born in Panama and still run for president, head of the military, without ever serving. I was very shaken by this poetry, as it centered so much of my studies in the present day, specifically ethnic studies and political science.
These poems spoke to my education and social location as an American citizen, in a way that made my uncomfortable for reaping the benefits they too should have access to. This book felt like a history broken into pieces, and put together in a different order to tell another side of the truth, using the same broken pieces. Instead of winning of an island, it read like loss of liberty, not just for people but for the land and animals who shared the space with these people.
colonization and the proliferation of plants
The remnants of colonialism,
containment, enclosure by concentration camp, religion, war and violence, the
ocean herself. And then there is
healing. Healing through the assemblage of words, images, historical texts,
definition, redefinition, redefining. A
different narrative showing through the spaces between words and phrases,
arpeggios built out of [land, soil, earth, ground] [tano] ocean, sky… bridges
of words connecting tidelands, lisiensan ga’lago, aerial parts, fino haya, fino
lago* to write a new lexicon of belonging.
The weaving of text,
history, image, poetry in “achiote” held onto me. Thinking about the ways that our knowledges
come to us, are built on ancestral knowledges, by knowing ourselves, our
places, our relationship to magic, and our
knowledges are broken by power, domination.
“Scaffold the course of
submission” and we will surely forget our way.
Build it into hegemonic global pathologies of thought and we wont
recognize the structure. Make our own sense of belonging so foreign we will forget our names,
our words, our medicine, our ability to heal.
We become infected and agents of dissemination.
““I am “from unincorporated
territory.” From indicates a/ particular
time or place as a starting point; from indicates a/particular time or place as
a starting point; from refers to/ a specific location as the first of two
limits; from imagines/ a source, a cause an agent, or an instrument; from mars/
separation, removal, or exclusion” (11)
Colonialism and science have
always been linked, the careful collecting, categorizing, classifying,
assessing and placing into hierarchies was a tool of conquest. The discipline
of Botany has always been one of regarding plant life as a resource and
commodity. The careful way that the
achoite is handled illuminates the complicated relationship between plant and the
proliferation of different life through colonial means.
How do plants colonize? how do we care our ancestral knowledge in the
face of hegemonic forms of knowledge making that seeks to obscure
through erasure and violence?
Contrasts
I am not a broken record, I promise. I do comment on forms or structures nearly every week in a blog post, but it is especially true with this collection: I have never seen structures like this before. Maps, definitions, pictures, what feels straight out of a history textbook only rewritten with accuracy... I am struck by the silences in from unincorporated territory [hacha], the poet's use of white space and contrasts. The spaces and contrasts create an echo, and a breath, for what historically has not been said: colonists don't want you on your land. They will relegate you to the ethnic aisle of the grocery store. They will reduce your plants/bodies to a powder.
Take, for example, achiote. Perez sets up a contrast between the corporate aisles of grocery stores and his grandmother's kitchen.
Achiote is recurs across poems in either intimate spaces, such as his grandmother leaning over the plant and warning Perez not to touch his eyes (18) or it is available "in the ethnic aisle of the grocery store" (17). This plant, which is so intrinsic to Perez's life and culture, is commoditized, sold for profit, relegated to the quote "ethnic aisle" of the grocery store, where suburban white people can wander down the row and pick up a packet of the powder, and literally and problematically spice up their lives. An insidious colonization that continues, even when I Google search achiote: Achiote -- what is it, and how to use it?
I get the feeling that Perez demands his readers read in a specific way, a larger way, across more than just one poem at a time. The "Tidelands" poems are not as impactful when they are encountered one at a time. Or, maybe the experience is just different when done this way? Should I say it like that? But, a magic is lost when you just read one thing, put the book down, and pick it up again.
Perez creates contrast (or white space between A and B, between Tidelands and Aerial Roots, I mean, each time they occur). This begins on p. 42. There is a back and forth, back and forth between a horse, colonization, and tidelands: each Tidelands ends with a different image (grass, mountains, fire, wind, river). These images are grounding and land in my heart. This contrasts with the narrative of the horse and what colonists did to these creatures, horrific actions, and how the horses were unfamiliar to people on the island but they had to take care of them. I don't know how to process it all, and I feel uprooted. Then each Tidelands poem brings a wash of "this is how it is," ending with an elemental image of grass, mountains, fire, wind, river... except on page 52, when there IS no image.
The effects of this contrast is one thing, but there is also the white space that occurs in between that I don't know how to make sense of. In other words, while threads are braided together, what happens in the white space between each thread, even as it winds around another narrative?
From Poetry.org -- I thought I'd place it here, because I wasn't aware until I Googled around that this is one branch in a larger project:
It is from this colonised, militarised position that Perez situates his anti-colonial/anti-militarisation suite of work. from unincorporated territory [lukao] is preceded by 2008's from unincorporated territory [hacha], 2010's from unincorporated territory [saina], and 2014's from unincorporated territory [guma']. Each collection is a branch, an aerial root of a giant banyan tree on its way to becoming an archipelago of self-sovereignty...
Take, for example, achiote. Perez sets up a contrast between the corporate aisles of grocery stores and his grandmother's kitchen.
Achiote is recurs across poems in either intimate spaces, such as his grandmother leaning over the plant and warning Perez not to touch his eyes (18) or it is available "in the ethnic aisle of the grocery store" (17). This plant, which is so intrinsic to Perez's life and culture, is commoditized, sold for profit, relegated to the quote "ethnic aisle" of the grocery store, where suburban white people can wander down the row and pick up a packet of the powder, and literally and problematically spice up their lives. An insidious colonization that continues, even when I Google search achiote: Achiote -- what is it, and how to use it?
I get the feeling that Perez demands his readers read in a specific way, a larger way, across more than just one poem at a time. The "Tidelands" poems are not as impactful when they are encountered one at a time. Or, maybe the experience is just different when done this way? Should I say it like that? But, a magic is lost when you just read one thing, put the book down, and pick it up again.
Perez creates contrast (or white space between A and B, between Tidelands and Aerial Roots, I mean, each time they occur). This begins on p. 42. There is a back and forth, back and forth between a horse, colonization, and tidelands: each Tidelands ends with a different image (grass, mountains, fire, wind, river). These images are grounding and land in my heart. This contrasts with the narrative of the horse and what colonists did to these creatures, horrific actions, and how the horses were unfamiliar to people on the island but they had to take care of them. I don't know how to process it all, and I feel uprooted. Then each Tidelands poem brings a wash of "this is how it is," ending with an elemental image of grass, mountains, fire, wind, river... except on page 52, when there IS no image.
The effects of this contrast is one thing, but there is also the white space that occurs in between that I don't know how to make sense of. In other words, while threads are braided together, what happens in the white space between each thread, even as it winds around another narrative?
From Poetry.org -- I thought I'd place it here, because I wasn't aware until I Googled around that this is one branch in a larger project:
It is from this colonised, militarised position that Perez situates his anti-colonial/anti-militarisation suite of work. from unincorporated territory [lukao] is preceded by 2008's from unincorporated territory [hacha], 2010's from unincorporated territory [saina], and 2014's from unincorporated territory [guma']. Each collection is a branch, an aerial root of a giant banyan tree on its way to becoming an archipelago of self-sovereignty...
Monday, March 18, 2019
in·su·lar
2. relating to or from an island.
"the movement of goods of insular origin"
Craig Santos Perez: To me, voice is an important element of docupoetics. Voice insists on the personal and the human within historical, political, cultural, and everyday documents and/or the documentation the past and the present. In my own work, this means foregrounding my own voice (thoughts, emotions, and perceptions) on a given topic, or the voices of my family whose lives were shaped by larger colonial forces that I am documenting. Part of this impulse is decolonial in the sense that our indigenous voices are often ignored or silenced in the documents and documentations of Guam history. Whereas the lyric is driven by voice, the docupoem emplaces voice within the historical and textual materiality of other contexts—highlighting the tension between voice and historiography.
https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/interview-with-craig-santos-perez/
/ˈins(y)ələr/
adjective
1. ignorant of or uninterested in cultures, ideas, or peoples outside one's own experience.
"a stubbornly insular farming people"
synonyms: narrow-minded, limited, blinkered, restricted, inward-looking, conventional, parochial, provincial, small-town, localist, small-minded, petty-minded, petty, close-minded, short-sighted, myopic, hidebound, dyed-in-the-wool, diehard, set, set in one's ways, inflexible, dogmatic, rigid, entrenched, illiberal, intolerant, prejudiced, bigoted, biased, partisan, sectarian, xenophobic, discriminatory; More
adjective
1. ignorant of or uninterested in cultures, ideas, or peoples outside one's own experience.
"a stubbornly insular farming people"
synonyms: narrow-minded, limited, blinkered, restricted, inward-looking, conventional, parochial, provincial, small-town, localist, small-minded, petty-minded, petty, close-minded, short-sighted, myopic, hidebound, dyed-in-the-wool, diehard, set, set in one's ways, inflexible, dogmatic, rigid, entrenched, illiberal, intolerant, prejudiced, bigoted, biased, partisan, sectarian, xenophobic, discriminatory; More
2. relating to or from an island.
"the movement of goods of insular origin"
Craig Santos Perez opens up "Hacha" with a reference to "The Insular Cases," [9] from the 1901 "supreme court" ["Some writers put quotes around words they want to distance themselves from. Quotation marks used this way are commonly called scare quotes or shudder quotes. It’s a way of implying that you’re using a term in an unusual way or that you don’t necessarily approve of it"-Grammarly website] This reference is meant to use as a lens through which to read this collection of poetry. The "supreme court" intends one meaning, Santos, the other. I looked up these cases and realized I know too little about "my" "government."
The preface [7] has both an excerpt from the u.s. constitution and the bible, two foreign outside forces that are insular [def.1] forces, forced into the insular [def.2] culture of Guahan [Guam]. Colonialism is the ocean where Guahan does not exist as a country, but as a "territory" or possession essentially of colonialism. Perez tries to locate his body on this "map" and within this "territory,"
"On some maps, Guam doesn't exist; I point to an empty space in the
Pacific and say, "I'm from here." On some maps, Guam is a small,
unnamed island; I say; "I'm from this unnamed place." On some maps,
Guam is named, Guam, U.S.A." I say, "I'm from a territory of the United
States." On some maps, Guam is named, simply "Guam";
I say, "I am from Guam."
The preface was key as to how I read the rest of the poems. I had a feeling of not belonging, of feeling small in a vast ocean, of feeling noticed for all of the wrong reasons, of trusting and being subsumed by other cultures because of my insularity.
"In the ocean of English words, the Chamorro words in this collection remain insular, struggling to emerge within their own "excerpted space." These poems are an attempt to begin re-territorializing the Chamorro language in relation to my own body, by way of the page." (12).
Perez is using the second definition in its truest form, to emerge from colonialism and flourish on an island that has been colonized many times over. He explores the Chamorro words as relating to the island, as relating to his body that is its own island within the realm of his origin on Guahan. His move from this island onto the land of one of its colonizers, America, carrying with him the very essence of his home and trying to recall the language that was wrung out of himself, history, and the land itself by colonialism.
In "from LISIENSAN GA'LAGO," Perez ends the poem with the word insular, at the bottom of the page, with the word "insular." The series of poems in section V. are about the Japanese occupation of Guam during the war. Here once again the word is used with its dual meanings by the poet concurrently to speak of the bracketed Japanese occupation within American colonialism. Perez uses brackets ["Square brackets are mainly used to enclose words added by someone other than the original writer or speaker, typically in order to clarify the situation. Sometimes, when quoting a person or document, adding a word or two is necessary to provide enough context for the quote to make sense. It’s extremely important to use brackets when you change a direct quote—forgetting to add them results in a misquote. - Grammarly website] in this way in many of his poems. Inserting meaning and offering translation, as in the poem
"from TA (LA) YA"
"-and in the caves at Tinta men and women hide beneath other dead bodies
"mail, mail" the soldiers said to make sure everyone was dead [come, come]
[ahi, play dead. close your eyes. hold your breath]
Perez's use of both quotation marks and brackets are what give the poems dimension and meaning. They are ingenious uses of tools of the craft that I have not seen used quite this way. They not only add multiple layers to his poems, like waves of understanding that wash over you the further into the collection you wade, but they are a communication device that are multi-faceted in their presentation of meaning, from poet to reader. They are an honest and genuine way for the poet to say, "Listen, to what I have to tell you so that you may understand." This may be my favorite collection of poetry yet.
I found this interview with the poet where he talks about "Hacha" and the importance of docupoetics in terms of the human within the historical:
Craig Santos Perez: To me, voice is an important element of docupoetics. Voice insists on the personal and the human within historical, political, cultural, and everyday documents and/or the documentation the past and the present. In my own work, this means foregrounding my own voice (thoughts, emotions, and perceptions) on a given topic, or the voices of my family whose lives were shaped by larger colonial forces that I am documenting. Part of this impulse is decolonial in the sense that our indigenous voices are often ignored or silenced in the documents and documentations of Guam history. Whereas the lyric is driven by voice, the docupoem emplaces voice within the historical and textual materiality of other contexts—highlighting the tension between voice and historiography.
https://coloradoreview.colostate.edu/interview-with-craig-santos-perez/
Cartographic Violence and hacha
Picking up, from Unincorporated Territory [hacha] I was overwhelmed. I flipped through it to get a gist of what I would be reading. There were maps, and graphics, and fragmented pieces, and bold enlarged numbers. I was completely puzzled by what I saw, but I was mostly excited to navigate, to move through, to dig into this work. I must begin by looking at the start of the text. Rather than a Table of Contents, Craig Santos Perez opens the book with a “Map of Contents.” The maps begin before the book itself. This phrasing, “Map of Contents,” would spark the beginning of questions I would later find myself continually asking throughout my reading of the text. These questions included, but were definitely not limited to, what does it mean to be mapped?, to be from a place that has been mapped?, to know those who’ve damaged your home took part in the mapping? to be the keeper of your land (plants, medicines, animals), your language (before it was forced from tongues to be drowned in a sea of English), and those who came before you?
I have always been enamored with cartography and I found my interest peaked again while reading from Unincorporated Territory [hacha]. One moment that drew me into this question of mapping was when Perez wrote about the preparations for a typhoon in one of the “from descending plumeria” pieces. Perez writes:
there was an early season storm. we took the usual precautions: boarded the windows. (i don’t want the kids to go, / my mom said when she returned from my sister’s room to check on her) unplugged the gas stove, placed towels on the bottom of the doors. and moved the furniture away. from the windows. i don’t remember the name. of the typhoon, but it was. mapped and monitored.
I placed emphasis on the last sentence, “mapped and monitored.” This storm, chaotic, unknown, and potentially dangerous, was mapped and monitored as a means of gaining a semblance of understanding and control over something inherently incapable of being controlled. This parallels the ways by which the US and Japan became determined to map and monitor Guam and those who inhabited the land. The poem continues with an italicized portion describing the ways in which a US military war cargo ship brought snakes that would invade and infest the island.
Perez places maps on the page, creating the immediate impulse to look (deeply and with intention) — in addition, images alongside poetry will almost always hold more weight as they are analyzed in tandem with the words. What happens when one attempts to render land on a page? There is violence in taking a 4 dimensional world and flattening it to a 2 dimensional one. In doing a little research I found a definition of “cartographic violence” it reads,
“cartography – as a means of identifying the boundaries of the sovereign state’s territories as well as its core features, a means of asserting ownership, sovereignty and legitimacy – emerged as a political discourse concerned with the acquisition and maintenance of state power. To map a territory means to formally define space along the lines set within a particular epistemological and political experience – a way of knowing and dominating – transposing a littleknown piece of concrete reality into an abstraction which serves the practical interests of the state, an operation done for and by the state.” (Off The Map: On Violence and Cartography by Mark Neocleous)
I thought it was pertinent to include this definition because it aligns well with how I read Perez’s work. I think this definition gets at the heart of the idea that the maps are an imposition of the wants, desires, and for the benefit of an invasive (colonial) force. The phrase “transposing a...piece of concrete reality into an abstraction” reminded me of a poem on page 16 which reads “geographic absence ~ “the old census records show” / because who can stand on the / reef / and name that / below water or sky / imagined territory ~” For me, this poem expresses the hubris of cartographers or anyone who would stand on the land and presume to create a document which could describe what’s embedded in each part. Thus, the “imagined territory” is the abstraction, is the map, is the false narrative fed through man’s fabrication of fictional boundaries on a page.
Before I end this post I want to think a little bit about how to “read” maps. In their own way they contain a language, with legends, at times colors, text (directional, informational, etc.). Maps become determinants of how people come to interact with a space. Perez includes this map of military bases which demonstrates the ways by which Guam as an island had become owned and used to serve the “practical interests of the state.” On the map you can see that barely any land is left for anything outside of these bases.
Alone this map could be interpreted in a variety of ways, used in the US as a show of strength (military, and global). But, in the context of this book it serves a vastly different purpose. In a following poem (page 88) we get the definition of the word “tano” as “land, soil, earth, ground.” To see an image displaying Guam as a militarized island, and then to be reminded in the native language that Guam is a place of “land, soil, earth, ground” is a stark contrast that enhances how we read the maps and the poems, challenging readers (specifically American readers) to reexamine the ways in which we’ve been conditioned to believe in the “art” of cartography.
I have always been enamored with cartography and I found my interest peaked again while reading from Unincorporated Territory [hacha]. One moment that drew me into this question of mapping was when Perez wrote about the preparations for a typhoon in one of the “from descending plumeria” pieces. Perez writes:
there was an early season storm. we took the usual precautions: boarded the windows. (i don’t want the kids to go, / my mom said when she returned from my sister’s room to check on her) unplugged the gas stove, placed towels on the bottom of the doors. and moved the furniture away. from the windows. i don’t remember the name. of the typhoon, but it was. mapped and monitored.
I placed emphasis on the last sentence, “mapped and monitored.” This storm, chaotic, unknown, and potentially dangerous, was mapped and monitored as a means of gaining a semblance of understanding and control over something inherently incapable of being controlled. This parallels the ways by which the US and Japan became determined to map and monitor Guam and those who inhabited the land. The poem continues with an italicized portion describing the ways in which a US military war cargo ship brought snakes that would invade and infest the island.
Perez places maps on the page, creating the immediate impulse to look (deeply and with intention) — in addition, images alongside poetry will almost always hold more weight as they are analyzed in tandem with the words. What happens when one attempts to render land on a page? There is violence in taking a 4 dimensional world and flattening it to a 2 dimensional one. In doing a little research I found a definition of “cartographic violence” it reads,
“cartography – as a means of identifying the boundaries of the sovereign state’s territories as well as its core features, a means of asserting ownership, sovereignty and legitimacy – emerged as a political discourse concerned with the acquisition and maintenance of state power. To map a territory means to formally define space along the lines set within a particular epistemological and political experience – a way of knowing and dominating – transposing a littleknown piece of concrete reality into an abstraction which serves the practical interests of the state, an operation done for and by the state.” (Off The Map: On Violence and Cartography by Mark Neocleous)
I thought it was pertinent to include this definition because it aligns well with how I read Perez’s work. I think this definition gets at the heart of the idea that the maps are an imposition of the wants, desires, and for the benefit of an invasive (colonial) force. The phrase “transposing a...piece of concrete reality into an abstraction” reminded me of a poem on page 16 which reads “geographic absence ~ “the old census records show” / because who can stand on the / reef / and name that / below water or sky / imagined territory ~” For me, this poem expresses the hubris of cartographers or anyone who would stand on the land and presume to create a document which could describe what’s embedded in each part. Thus, the “imagined territory” is the abstraction, is the map, is the false narrative fed through man’s fabrication of fictional boundaries on a page.
Before I end this post I want to think a little bit about how to “read” maps. In their own way they contain a language, with legends, at times colors, text (directional, informational, etc.). Maps become determinants of how people come to interact with a space. Perez includes this map of military bases which demonstrates the ways by which Guam as an island had become owned and used to serve the “practical interests of the state.” On the map you can see that barely any land is left for anything outside of these bases.
colonization and the proliferation of plants
The remnants of colonialism,
containment, enclosure by concentration camp, religion, war and violence, the
ocean herself. And then there is
healing. Healing through the assemblage of words, images, historical texts,
definition, redefinition, redefining. A
different narrative showing through the spaces between words and phrases,
arpeggios built out of [land, soil, earth, ground] [tano] ocean, sky… bridges
of words connecting tidelands, lisiensan ga’lago, aerial parts, fino haya, fino
lago* to write a new lexicon of belonging.
The weaving of text,
history, image, poetry in “achiote” held onto me. Thinking about the ways that our knowledges
come to us, are built on ancestral knowledges, by knowing ourselves, our
places, our relationship to magic, and our
knowledges are broken by power, domination.
“Scaffold the course of
submission” and we will surely forget our way.
Build it into hegemonic global pathologies of thought and we wont
recognize the structure. Make our own sense of belonging so foreign we will forget our names,
our words, our medicine, our ability to heal.
We become infected and agents of dissemination.
““I am “from unincorporated
territory.” From indicates a/ particular
time or place as a starting point; from indicates a/particular time or place as
a starting point; from refers to/ a specific location as the first of two
limits; from imagines/ a source, a cause an agent, or an instrument; from mars/
separation, removal, or exclusion” (11)
Colonialism and science have
always been linked, the careful collecting, categorizing, classifying,
assessing and placing into hierarchies was a tool of conquest. The discipline
of Botany has always been one of regarding plant life as a resource and
commodity. The careful way that the
achoite is handled illuminates the complicated relationship between plant and the
proliferation of different life through colonial means. How do plants colonize? how do we care our ancestral knowledge in the face of hegemonic forms of knowledge making that seeks to obscure through erasure and violence?
Hacha
I’m in a deep delirium of sickness right now. So I will try to make sense of what I read today but then isn’t that what most Indigenous poets are trying to do when it comes to colonization? Trying to make sense of the clusterfuck that is the so called powers that be. I feel like this is book I will continue to return to, there is so much tenderness, reclaiming of language and history of violence in the pages of Hacha.
What I like about Hacha is that it starts from the poets perspective, he doesn’t try to make it accommodating to a non-native audience. He lays downs his words and gives the reader a choice to continue and learn or set the book down and continue their day without finishing. As a non-Chamorro person, I am thankful to be reading and seeing a glimpse in the life and experiences of this Chamorro poet. As Perez says on page 21:
After the death of sanvitores, the native population dropped from 200,000 to 5,000 in two generations as a result of Spanish military conquest (21).
There are many parts to this book that are history lessons and there are parts that are poetic in regards to forced assimilation of a dominant language:
“less distances all
Tonalities
Buried
Fields of burnt soil
mute arrivals
Try
To stand
Wondrous
With no
Throat” (65).
I love that last stanza, “try to stand wondrous with no throat.” It really is hard to stand tall with no voice, no hope and no sovereignty. I had to look up what unincorporated meant because I was unfamiliar with the term. It means: In law, an unincorporated area is a region of land that is not governed by a local municipal corporation; similarly an unincorporated community is a settlement that is not governed by its own local municipal corporation, but rather is administered as part of larger administrative divisions, such as a township, parish, borough, county, city, canton, state, province or country.
Which means the native people of Guam do not have sovereignty over their own land! It currently is a land that is still occupied and being colonized by the united states of america which is still a current control of violence on the land. Violence is also a big part in this book from Perez’s telling of Japanese occupation to Spanish acquisition to American colonization.
Lastly, Perez writes about the brown tree snake in the book which in a way seems to be a metaphor for colonization rotting and destroying the island. He says, “They say there were no snakes on Guam before World War II (95).” Hinting that the Americans seems to have brought a plague to the island something that can’t be ignored and controlled. The snakes are currently overruling the bird and rodent population and the growth of new trees is dwindling. Due to the two million snakes the ecosystem on the island has taken a toll for continuing wildlife and trees. It’s seems like once the snakes came a halt of some kind has taken place and a decrease in the ecosystem is indeed a violence on the land. The snakes almost represent colonization on the land resulting in an eradication of the birds and trees on the island.
Words as Islands in Hacha
from
Aerial Roots on page 45: “they thought they had to feed the horse iron
until it began to graze opened / ground” the connection between people and
horses, like Villarreal’s bestiary.
from
Aerial Roots on page 43: “ [kalulot : they say “the introduction” of horses—
/ “they say” half man half beast—parallel // captivity—the entire island carved
/ by a grotto—“that it had wings”—fissures,” the ‘parallel captivity’ between
horses on a ship, horses on an island, people on an island, which could be like
a stationary ship… and then the divisions created by a grotto and fissures. The
quotations around “that it had wings”, something “they” say. What are the
wings?
from
Aerial Roots on page 51: “they say a horse’s bones are made of ivory”
reminds me of elephant tusks and driftwood horse statues by the pacific, which I
see occasionally in people’s yards. Really worn sun-bleached driftwood looks
like bones, so I can imagine horse bones washing up to shore after their bodies
were thrown into the sea. And on a darker note, human bones, washed together in
a mass grave.
IV Pg. 53: (from Aimé Césaire’s Notebook of a Return to the Native Land)
“Islands scars of the water / Islands evidence of wounds”
I was struck by how the poems are formatted:
clipped, deeply spaced, woven together in and out of each other—Tidelands and From Aerial Roots were layered together, so I couldn’t always keep
track of which one I was reading, or how they picked up on the previous one.
It was a disorienting read, and I
started to think how it was similar to being in open water: not knowing up from
down or where the ocean stops and the sky begins on the horizon. I started to
see each word as an island after page 29, War:
in the Pacific Ocean and the map poems that surround it, where islands and countries
are represented as just their names on a page. Reading these poems became grabbing
on to each word, one after the other, sometimes flowing together sometimes
halting, like an archipelago.
Maybe a bit of a stretch, but the
punctuation in from Lisiensan Ga’Lago on
page 78 seem like waves:
apuya’tasi ~
the contours of a drowned
anguage hu hu
i
blind fall thru
fluent margins ~
un saddok para i hale ~
blood only as context
The punctuation does a lot of work
in these poems, and I’m not always sure what it is, or if each set of brackets
and each whatever this is ~ have set meanings when they’re used. Most of the
Chamorro words are in brackets, (even the title’s in brackets) or else sectioned
off in a kind of vocabulary box. Santos Perez’s preface focuses a lot on vocabulary
and definitions: what is meant by certain English words. Vocabulary and
definitions continue to be discussed throughout the book: Chamorro, English,
Japanese, Spanish.
From the preface on page 12: “In
the ocean of English words, the Chamorro words in this collection remain
insular, struggling to emerge within their own “excerpted space.” These poems
are an attempt to begin re-territorializing the Chamorro language in relation
to my own body, by way of the page.”
That the same word is used for both
the native language and native people of Guam adds extra import to the use of
Chamorro as an expression of or a claim on identity. And revisiting this part
of the preface after having read the whole book, I’m able to see how the
spacing/formatting works as an ocean of English words with Chamorro word
islands in them.
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