Adrienne Su is my favorite new poet for this week. Each of her four poems packed so much, and I read them several times—first for language, then deeper, for theme, allusion, imagery, then deeper once again, to try to read into where she was trying to leave us with the poem. But particularly in the final two poems, her language & imagery seduced me the most.

“Female Infanticide: A Guide for Mothers” was like a slap in the face, each time, each roman numeral, over and over. But there was a change from one section to the next. The last three sections are the most disturbing—imposing psychological torture to keep the daughter from moving forward in society or with her life. The last line is most unexpected, most disquieting, “In old age a daughter is fine good fortune.” Suddenly the idea of a daughter’s value is completely manipulated; though she is worth little as a child or growing woman, if her spirit is broken down enough, and if she proves impossible to expend, she will eventually gain a purpose of servitude. This last stanza suggests the concept of care—that the unwed daughter will care for her parents when they age, though they have not cared for her (or have, but only by keeping her alive). This is the least expedient option, and yet the only time in which a relationship of caring (even love?) between parents and a child has been suggested. I was particularly taken by the subtitle of this piece, “A Guide for Mothers.” Why mothers and not fathers? Does the responsibility fall on the mother (a woman herself, once a girl baby herself) to decide if her daughter will live or die? This calculated list is insidious, inhuman, and I think it is telling that the message is to a woman, with regard to another woman. The speaker in this poem is clearly neither, but a man, a representative of patriarchal power, one whose life was never considered in this way, who would never have to make this choice himself.

“Savannah Crabs” took on the narrative of immigration and assimilation with a particular potency. The language took so many turns throughout and revealed several layers of themes. First, the colors stood out to me throughout this piece: bluish and thirsty, oranges, blue Buick, African violets, pink bedclothes, white birds, off-yellow shell, reddens and stills. These colors carry us through the poem—the crabs are blue (asphyxiated) like the very American Buick, drained of life, color, originality. The pink bedclothes are soft, feminine, childlike, but they ironically hold the lonesome, loveless death of the grandmother. She escapes the bedclothes, the bed and the world in which she resides, on the prophetic wings of the white doves.

Prophecies are strong throughout this piece. The first appears on the eyelets of the grandmother’s gown. Next, unexpectedly, one rains down with the salt poured on the sinkful of blue crabs. “When it rains it pours,” the children chant the motto of Morton Salt. The brand announced the slogan after having developed a salt whose granules wouldn’t stick together in humidity. Rice kernels are often used to keep salt from clumping and sticking. But, with Morton salt, no rice was necessary, the salt will pour freely all over the bodies of the crabs. I can’t escape the image here of Americanized ways of living that supposedly make lives easier, but are in fact slowly killing (burning, dredging) the lives of those who must change & conform. The children are taken with the gymnastics of the very much alive crabs, but pour the salt over them, nonetheless. The next prophecy comes from the crabs: “You’ll ache, you’ll smother;/you’ll never be able to talk to each other.” This is a warning to the children, of what and whom they might lose if they continue on with this assimilation.

Finally, we return to colors, with the yellow crab. This crab is only saved because she is forgotten; it is pure chance that she is left behind while the others are “waving hello/” break “and goodbye. The mass of crabs turns deep red as their lives end. At first, I was unsure whether the yellow-shelled crab was alive (as it is just referred to as a shell), but I decided that it is. She is injured, has suffered, is far from the familiar sand of her home, but she survives. Is the life she will live worthwhile; at what cost has she escaped the fate of her salted brothers and sisters? The poet calls the crab “he” but I believe it is “she” (represents narrator). She is ugly (injured, different looking than the others); she is a hermit (alone, separated from her pack); she is threatening (she carries the knowledge of this history on with her—she threatens the stability of the world in which crabs are salted).

The final prophecy is a message from the surviving crab to the narrator: “You’ll find joy, but you must leave the family.” This is the path she must take, and it could be a path leading to love, prosperity & success—but these words carry with them the chill of the other crabs’ prophesy (“never be able to talk to each other”), as well as the sad final words with which the grandmother left the world (“loneliness, lovelessness, white birds”). In this poem the voices are many: the narrator’s (from the poet’s experience?), and the messages she has gathered living between two cultures. Her instrument is her food, which is also perhaps her family’s livelihood. Perhaps the crabs are a great delicacy, or perhaps they are the food they need to survive. Perhaps they represent the bounty one can find in Georgia, or perhaps they are a food that the two cultures have in common. This poem is about survival—aligning the lives of animals with human is common (as with “Animal Liberation” & the duck), but the idea of a family’s nourishment as representation of their loss of culture/loss of self is more radical, and closer to the bone.

I am eager to hear other interpretations of Su’s work—to hear how it may have affected others in a way I missed. What do people think about the significance of using crabs as an instrument? And what about the mention of the aunt and her violets? I have trouble weaving those two lines into my interpretation of the poem. Thanks for your thoughts!