Registers of Illuminated Villages

Reading through Registers of Illuminated Villages made me contemplate a lot about mourning, death, and the many layers we have as people. I found myself very haunted by some of the lines that made up these poems. The kind of haunting that sends chills up your spine, but at the same time I found her words somewhat relatable? She writes with such pain and honesty and it is raw and real.

The first poem that struck me was Self-Portrait As Mango. Honestly, this one was just my favorite. The humor. The bite. Everything about it was just so good! The fact that she takes such an important topic and fills it with such humorous venom gives such vibrancy to this poem.

Because this “exotic” fruit won’t be cracked open to reveal whiteness to you.

The way she puts quotations around “exotic” as if to say, what the hell does that mean when you refer to a human being as such anyway? And this comparison of the coconut and the mango that she uses to justify her choosing of the mango. It’s all so unapologetic as POC should be especially now. POC owe you nothing.

Moreover, a lot of the darker lines stuck with me because there was so much emotion behind them or they were easy to connect with because who hasn’t felt that way right?

For instance, in Before the Accident, And After, she writes the line:

exactly seven yellow poppies grew from the mouth of her corpse I tried to cuddle.

It was the mourning and imagery that held me in this line. Knowing the feeling of wanting to still be able to touch someone who you are no longer able to, moved me. No matter how long it’s been there are still moments where you feel that way and it’s real.

Other lines that stuck out to me for their authenticity or darkness were:

It’s true I wanted to be beautiful before authentic. Say the word exotic. Say minority—

This elegy is trying hard to understand how we all become corpses, but I’m trying to understand permanence

i haven’t razored my wrists, tho, or pilfered the pills to end

We buy oranges in cities gnawing then burying the cadavers of their own opulent dreams.

There are so many bodies inside this one.

I could go on. Her words were just so raw and I’m all for poetry with a dash of morbidity. I mean, burying the cadavers of their opulent dreams, are you kidding me? So much of this collection was turning tragedy into art and she does a damn good job of that.