Status Updates From Dear Memory: Letters on Wri...

‘Dwelling on whether to care/not—is a privilege—I envied Didion—she had things passed down to her—she knew what her great-great-great-great-great-grandparents did—furious at my hands. At myself—my history—my inability to do anything w/ those hands. Staying silent was following—mother’s footsteps—by telling you, I risked adversely shaping your views of the world—I promise not to pass handfuls of hate into your hands.’

‘Each book isn’t just a book but a period of a life—As I write, more & more of my cells are replaced by language. When they burn a writer’s body—smoke will be shaped like letters—Plath said: I think that personal experience is very important but—it should be relevant to—larger things—consciously made to speak intimately to thousands of others—language is theatre—days when everyone around you look like an executioner’

‘If you saw my poems today, I hope you could see—I heard you even though you couldn’t hear me—They have become so loud—each night I fold them into origami cigarettes & smoke them so they’ll blow away. What I learned from you was to forget the sun, that the moon burned more, to cling to things that didn’t seem to leave a trace, such as memory / silence / cruelty / beauty. I couldn’t fully understand any of this then.’

‘I yearn to be around—the way garlic plants improve—beets next to them. I’m not sure—you probably don’t remember me—chasm between us was filled w/ poetry—Instead of silence—you were filling the space between us w/ language. I didn’t know what was happening at the time—but I see it now. The language of poetry reminded me to stay alive—when it felt like I had nothing—I was nothing. You weren’t satisfied w/ my silence.’

‘Resolve is a live animal. We perpetuate the narrative—given to us—to survive—like a bird passing—dying in a foreign land. I wonder why any of this matters—why it matters now—why I haven’t wondered before—When the present is more than we can hold, it turns into history. & the future turns into water. The water between—countries. Memory is everything, yet it is nothing—mine, but—also clinging to the memory of others.’

‘I would like to know the people who were left behind—preserved salty plums—Dear Grandmother, today I found a Certificate of Marriage—a translation of it—seeing the date makes me cry—I can’t find your town—because it’s probably spelled another way—you were born one year after the Qing dynasty collapsed—bao zi—jiao zi—shaobing—Sichuan Province—grief freezes—I wonder what love looked like in China in 1939—I don't know’

“An elegy reflects on the loss of a loved one. What form can express the love of something you never knew but knew existed?”