Eye Level: Jenny Xie

From the very first page of the book to the last page of the book I was overly excited and very much engaged.  With each word I read and each page I turned I found myself exclaiming fuck yes, snapping in relatability and endlessly underlining practically the entire book!  “Can this solitude be rootless, unhooked from the ground?”  Can it, it sure feels that I spend most of my days floating in thin air waiting and hoping to catch my breath, take a seat, unwind from the constant chaos of my day to day life.  Being rooted…is that something that is possible at all in this world we live in, aren’t we all being pushed and pulled in different directions at all time throughout our lives or is this just something I struggle with alone in the solitude which lies within my own thoughts.  Am I just a lonely traveler with nowhere to arrive to?  

I absolutely loved how many of the word used created images for me, the word brighteningin PHNOM PENH DIPYCH: WET SEASON allowed my brain to lighten the book and room in which I was sitting in while I read that poem.  Words that describe rain which also force my mind to utilize other senses such as smell, touch and hearing; “Rainwater mars the tin roof” “Water growing out of water.”  The theme that I watched out for very closely while I read Jenny Xie’s poems was that of the eye’s, being seen, how other people’s gazes have the tendency to become part of who we are, I guess I should speak more for myself with that last statement. Eyes, sight, looking at objects at oneself and examining what one sees are all throughout the beautifully written words on every page of the book.  Some of my favorites which spoke to me the loudest are as follows, “no visible evidence” “I’ve gotten to where I am by dint of my poor eyesight” “Seeing the collars of this city open I wish for higher meaning and its histrionics to cease.” “The stench making me look hard at everything.” “I am protective of what eyes cannot pray open. The unannounced. The infinite places within language to hide.” “I can shake out the imprint of my body on the sheets each morning. Harder to shake out of my mind” 

I seriously want to go on and on and yet instead I will take a long pause with Visual Orders, this poem is, everything!  I just fell in love with this entire poem!!  I read it and see so much of the insides of the poem as well as the outsides of it, the contrast with self and self is so incredible within the lines of this piece!  “Harvest the eyes from the ocular cavities. Complete in themselves: a pair of globes with their own meridians. What atrophies without the tending of a gaze? The visible object constituted by sight. But where to spend one’s sight, a soft currency? To be profligate in taking in the outer world is to shortchange the interior one.” OH, MY FU****** GOD!!!  I just want to continue copying down this Entire poem, every single time I read it I get so much more from it then the time before.  This poem pulls at so many emotions, so many of my life experiences, “The seductions of seeing ensure there is that which remains unseen. Evading visibility is its own fortune. If to behold is to possess, to be looked upon is to be fixed in another’s sight, static and immutable.” I feel so seen within these words.  So much of my life I walk around feeling hidden, misunderstood, invisible, this poem makes my heart feel like it finally has eyes, eyes that can look directly into your eyes without needing to look away, eyes that can walk around the rest of the poems in this book saying hello with my head held high, eyes free from the shame in which my eyesight impresses on me.  Having read this my disembodied eye cannot be confined to the skin and to what it holds captive, it no longer has to be unseen against my own will and denied a reflection to be locked out of itself! 

The poem MELANCHOLIA also spoke to me in such amazing ways!  First I read it all the way through, then I read it again, but only the parts that are in italics and then I read it a third time without the italics, and of course I read it again all the way through, “slow and fast, fast and slow.” “All of my eye’s mistakes. And what were they? Level” I felt like this poem was an interview with the self, self vs self, internal vs external, seen and unseen, inside and outside. “I spin through my life again” I read the words again and again and as I do I am reminded of the ways in which my days look the same most of time, the routines of cuddling with my daughter first thing in the morning, telling her to get her shoes on 5 to many times, so that we can sit in traffic, car after car, day after day, week after week, year after year. As I drive on the freeway so much of my life just goes unseen, unheard, over and over here I am.