Who are I - Who is we

Happy Halloween everybody. Interesting that our blog topic is Identity on the one weekend a year that we celebrate the opportunity to be someone else.

Perez-Wendt's poem in Effigies, "We Are Not the Crime / We Are the Evidence," reclaims identity with the title. Labeled "crime" or criminal by conquerors, the "we" of this poem can hold their heads high - they have been renamed in ownership of history and the wrongs laid on them.

The poem is a re-writing of a nursery rhyme. It demonstrates identity by setting the form in contrast to the content. The European rhythm speaks of the structure of history, the parameters for the people set by foreign invaders, and also of the disdain the European invaders (dressed benignly as missionaries) had for the people, looking upon them as children, uneducated uncivilized underlings that needed help. The content within this structure objects to that perspective, and retells the history from the truth of the people.

The choice of language is a thumb to European indoctrination: "nigh," "uncontroverted," "chastened," "the tolling bell," "consigned," all hint at the imposed culture, attitude, and objectives of the conquerors. "They've kicked the chair from under us" demonstrates through repetition the waves of invaders that have inundated the Pacific island chain. "The chair" referring perhaps to sovereignty, "from under us" indicating the foundation of tradition lost each time. The "Etc. etc." is awesome! Who ends a poem like that? How better to show the volume of injustice, the boredom of the imposed structure, the lies ad nauseum.

Identity intersects within the poem by turning the presumed binary on its head. Where the meeting of cultures has been recorded from the view of the conquerors, this poem re-orients the identity of us v. them. "Them" often refers to the subjugated, the expelled; here, identity is reclaimed by placing the honor of the label "us" within the perspective of the indigenous population.

Perez-Wendt is of Hawaiian, Chinese, and Spanish ancestry. The blend of invader and indigenous in her blood must make for an interesting battle of identity. Though we cannot know to what class her Spanish grandparents belonged, they were able to acquire land, which demonstrates some level of social mobility. It is also telling of the blend we all are, and the struggle for identity faced by most people of mixed ancestry. The Spanish parts likely include Arabic blood, as her grandparents emigrated from Malaga, Spain, a city in Andalusia, the hub of Muslim power in Spain from 711 to 1492. Interesting then, that the conqueror portion of her ancestry likely includes blood from its conquerors as well.

Perhaps because of the multiple perspectives she speaks from, though they may be unified in her being, this poem speaks not only to Hawaiian people, but to all who have endured subjugation by invaders. I connect with this poem through its underdog identification, the fight from the floor, the refusal to stay down. Though my skin is white, I have always identified with the persecuted portion of the world's population. I am always eager to apply my skills to the side of the fight that is not supposed to win, that is unfairly matched, that is unjustly treated. Maybe I'm serving out a sentence for past-life wrongs. Maybe I wasn't always white.

Struggles with my own identity will be played out in my work, I'm sure. Right now, my mind is blown by Steven Cordova's poem, "Of Sorts." The title itself suggests a conglomeration of identities, pieces and parts and uncertainty about where they fit. So much is happening in this poem, I don't even know what's going on. He seems to be questioning identity as a human even, defined as having a body that we are necessarily committed to. By bringing dreams and changing relationships in the space-time continuum into the mix, he puts the corporeal definition of humanity to task.

This may be a stretch, but work with me. In searching the poem for reference to identity, some revelation (as in a revealing) of who is searching and who is found in this poem, I submit that the identity (at least one) he writes about is that of a writer. I think this because of the following lines:

"...recount out loud...Or write it down. Or it will leave you...the need...to expel what, for such a short time, was yours and yours alone."

These words remind me of the dilemma for writers, the lack of ownership of a created thing once the words are laid on the page or stage.

"the need to pee" (after waking up from a dream) relates the physical to the metaphysical. And also hints at the relationship of creation to waste. What this relationship is I don't know, but it makes me think of something we read in Gevirtz' Craft of Poetry that I cannot remember well enough to quote or find. Maybe a classmate can help me out - it was something about art being beautiful waste.

I have more questions of this poem than answers for it. I will ask them in hopes that it sparks discussion or comment.

In the section, "To begin...did buy the ticket to," that describes the flip-flopping of time and space in dreamland, and the changing aspects of ownership from waking to dreaming, he seems to be focused on "movement," and it strikes me that there is some relationship of movement to identity. The changes in identity for populations caused by movement across the globe, the internal movement of shifting identities - anybody got a handle on this?

A diary seems to relate to identity as a record of time and thought. He describes it as necessary discomfort: "the appointment with the doctor's." I wonder if this characterization relates to the grounding activities we feel are required to define ourselves, to stay positioned as a replacement for being "healthy."

Body as ground, as nation, is suggested in this waking space. Commitment to the physical as real. He confounds me on the fourth line, saying, "in your dreams at night you're a bigger infidel." Bigger than what? This is the first mention of being an infidel at all. The notion of treason, within oneself and among bodily processes (sleep) required for health, is fascinating. Maybe the faithfulness he speaks of in waking hours is a facade, for the subconscious takes over in dreams and we cannot control perception. This brings up the question, to which or whom are we unfaithful and when - the waking hours may actually belie the truth of existence. And also draws upon the shaky ground of the word "infidel." Used so often (especially since the U.S. invaded Iraq) as a term of perspective, its meaning determined by the identity of the person speaking it. What do they say? One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.

Anyway, I think what Cordova does in this poem is breathtaking. And I am hoping for more minds at work on what is happening here. The connection of time, space, movement, and physical/metaphysical states to the notion of identity deserves a collaborative inspection.