Liberation and Genny Lim-Nature and Place

I remember meeting Genny’s daughter.  I remember Genny telling me she had lost her in a car accident.  I felt so much sorrow to hear this.  Knowing that a child should naturally outlive their parents and how much grief she must have felt experiencing such a loss.  She was her only child.

In reading Genny Lim’s poem “Animal Liberation” I felt a sense of emotional release and spiritual upliftment.  Her poem expresses her own liberation; to let go of her grief so that her daughter may transcend to spirit world.  In her story Genny uses an unusual metaphor, a duck, which is also culturally specific to her Chinese-American experience.  As readers we can infer that before Genny bought this duck, it’s death would have been looming.  In her deliberate action of freeing this duck from it’s “cage” by buying it and giving it back to nature, a lake of water, Genny feels the power and satisfaction of witnessing and becoming a part of helping another spirit experience freedom, a chance to live and be happy.  

Genny does a beautiful job of setting the scene in San Francisco’s Chinatown with a hint of humor, descriptive detail and dialogue that appears more like prose.  She also starts many of her lines with “I” statements, bringing us directly into her story, while slowly building the anticipation and curiosity of the reader to arrive at Stow Lake.  The period she buys the duck to it’s release shows a strong feeling of tenderness as one would for a child.  Here her description freeing the bird to enjoy the water is likened to that of an infant or child,

“She tumbles into the lake and as soon as her body makes contact

    with liquid

There is instant recognition

She dives into the pool and emerges with her feathers wet and 

   glistening

She spread her wings wide for the first time and quacks with joy

She dives in and out again and again

Baptizing her entire body with miraculous water...”

Toward the end of the poem Genny notes that the duck’s freedom extends to her own happiness and letting go of her beloved daughter.  She says,

“Free!” I breathe, “at last!” One life saved for another one lost 

Good-bye my darling, Danielle!”

This is a loving homage or ceremony similar to how some of us spread the ashes of a loved one in nature after they have passed.  In this case water becomes a vessel in which life emerges and thrives reminding us how precious it really is.  I appreciate this and other poems from the section “Nature and Place” in Totems for the sacredness and important role nature plays in one’s life.  I would also agree with Ishmael Reed that poets do tend to have an infinity to connecting with nature and I would also say spirituality.  Genny Lim is definitely one of those special poets who can bring forth both quite gracefully.

I’m proud to say not too long ago in 2006, Genny Lim was the first literary judge for a national award I created through Macha Femme Press for Native American and Latina Women poets called The Xochiquetzalli Award for Poetry.  She generously read through many entries and through a blind reading deliberated determining: First place-Gabriela Erandi Rico, Second place-Nanette Bradley Deetz, Third Place-Celeste Guzman, and Honorable Mention-Luna Maia.