Fracture Anthology (chapbook)
In an interview with BBC, poet Sylvia Plath claimed that one shouldn't approach the poem in a narcissistic way, but take internal chaos or even madness and turn it outwards as a tool to shed light on issues larger than yourself, like the Holocaust or the atomic bombing in Hiroshima. I've attempted to take on a similar approach with my poetry.
In particular, I’ve taken on a poetry project that demands the attention and respect of sympathetic introspection. I began writing poems about my mother. When I told her of my interest in writing about her life, she gave me her journals she’s been collecting for the past 30 years to turn them into poems. The idea was to capture her at her most honest and vulnerable and turn them into poems that accurately represent her in an authentic way, while also containing introspection that reaches beyond her personal experience. How Plath used events like the Holocaust as a way to reveal herself and to have herself in return reveal these events, I’m taking my mother’s life and attempting to internalize them, because I believe she has taken on an emotional war within herself for decades. And my job as a poet is to place a mirror within myself and outside of myself as a way to reflect her experiences: being raped from the age of five by her older brother, dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, and dealing with post-partum depression.
Looking at Plath’s statements in a contemporary lens, we see a lot of problems with her using war atrocities for the sake of metaphor. Along, with Plath, I’m aware of the potential troubles of a man writing in the voice of a woman who dealt with sexual abuse, even if that woman is his mother. Writing this collection has been a constant battle in that way. But my attempt in writing in her voice comes from my desire to get as close as possible to her to understand her and in return better understand myself. In many ways, I can never understand her experiences, but I am also of her, a product of her, and I carry pieces of her in me. So I feel the need to get near those pieces.
Cover and Inner Art by Colombian illustrator Zumbambico
