[Reader-list] Fwd: [minstrels] Poem #982: Rachel Rose

[hansa thapliyal]

something i read in a ;ist that sends in  a poem every day- reminded me 
again that an attempt at this form of ' topographical' expression  can bring 
in the   direct the economical and manage to say just what you were getting 
at.
hansa
Guest poem sent in by Laura Simeon <Laura.Simeon at alumnae.brynmawr.edu>
>
>'What We Heard About the Japanese'
>
>  We heard they would jump from buildings
>  at the slightest provocation: low marks
>
>  On an exam, a lovers' spat
>  or an excess of shame.
>
>  We heard they were incited by shame,
>  not guilt. That they
>
>  Loved all things American.
>  Mistrusted anything foreign.
>
>  We heard their men liked to buy
>  schoolgirls' underwear
>
>  And their women
>  did not experience menopause or other
>
>  Western hysterias. We heard
>  they still preferred to breastfeed,
>
>  Carry handkerchiefs, ride bicycles
>  and dress their young like Victorian
>
>  Pupils. We heard that theirs
>  was a feminine culture. We heard
>
>  That theirs was an example of extreme
>  patriarchy. That rape
>
>  Didn't exist on these islands. We heard
>  their marriages were arranged, that
>
>  They didn't believe in love. We heard
>  they were experts in this art above all others.
>
>  That frequent earthquakes inspired insecurity
>  and lack of faith. That they had no sense of irony.
>
>  We heard even faith was an American invention.
>  We heard they were just like us under the skin.
>
>       -- Rachel Rose
>
>Today's poem is actually one of a pair, and I think they really work best
>read together....
>
>     'What the Japanese Perhaps Heard'
>
>     Perhaps they heard we don't understand them
>     very well. Perhaps this made them
>
>     Pleased. Perhaps they heard we shoot
>     Japanese students who ring the wrong
>
>     Bell at Hallowe'en. That we shoot
>     at the slightest provocation: a low mark
>
>     On an exam, a lovers' spat, an excess
>     of guilt. Perhaps they wondered
>
>     If it was guilt we felt at the sight of that student
>     bleeding out among our lawn flamingos,
>
>     Or something recognizable to them,
>     something like grief. Perhaps
>
>     They heard that our culture
>     has its roots in desperate immigration
>
>     And lone men. Perhaps they observed
>     our skill at raising serial killers,
>
>     That we value good teeth above
>     good minds and have no festivals
>
>     To remember the dead. Perhaps they heard
>     that our grey lakes are deep enough to swallow cities,
>
>     That our landscape is vast wheat and loneliness.
>     Perhaps they ask themselves if, when grief
>
>     Wraps its wet arms around Montana, we would not prefer
>     the community of archipelagos
>
>     Upon which persimmons are harvested
>     and black fingers of rock uncurl their digits
>
>     In the mist. Perhaps their abacus echoes
>     the shape that grief takes,
>
>     One island
>     bleeding into the next,
>
>     And for us grief is an endless cornfield,
>     silken and ripe with poison.
>
>       -- Rachel Rose
>
>Rachel Rose is a young Canadian/American poet whose work has been published
>in a volume of the Hugh MacLennan Poetry Series (_Giving My Body to
>Science_, McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999,
>http://www.mqup.mcgill.ca/99/rose.htm), as well as appearing in _The Best
>American Poetry 2001_.
>
>When I first read these poems, they resonated strongly with me on several
>levels. Being half Japanese, I have heard it all: both extreme negative
>stereotypes and the almost unbelievable idealizing of Japanese culture that
>some Westerners indulge in. Either approach reduces the Japanese to
>something not quite like us, whether it's less-than-human or super-human.
>Rachel Rose captures these absurdity of these contradictions economically
>and strikingly in just a few lines.
>
>Secondly, as an American with many friends from Japan, I'm often in the
>position of trying to explain things about US culture that I can barely
>grasp myself. Things like guns and individualism and attitudes towards the
>elderly. Rose's second poem crystallizes all of this into a few vivid and
>colorful images, showing us how strange and inscrutable we can appear when
>viewed from the outside.
>
>And finally, the timing of when I read poems felt significant. Much of what
>I've been hearing lately about Muslims reminds me painfully of what was 
>said
>about the Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. They were
>seen as people with no respect for life or regard for self-preservation, no
>sense of morality that we could understand, showing fanatical loyalty to an
>evil empire, and threatening our culture with their alien customs. I.e. not
>"good Christians." Sound familiar? Life for Muslims in America today must 
>be
>much like it was for Japanese during World War II. It makes me ache, but I
>do have hope that we can learn from past mistakes.
>
>Laura Simeon
>Laura.Simeon at alumnae.brynmawr.edu
>




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