{"id":129444,"date":"2018-09-20T12:45:08","date_gmt":"2018-09-20T16:45:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=129444"},"modified":"2018-09-20T12:45:08","modified_gmt":"2018-09-20T16:45:08","slug":"poetry-rx-poor-deluded-human-you-seek-my-heart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/20\/poetry-rx-poor-deluded-human-you-seek-my-heart\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Rx: Poor Deluded Human, You Seek My Heart"},"content":{"rendered":"

In our column\u00a0Poetry Rx<\/a>, readers\u00a0write in<\/a>\u00a0with a specific emotion, and our resident poets\u2014Sarah Kay, Kaveh Akbar, and Claire Schwartz\u2014take turns prescribing the perfect poems to match. This week,\u00a0Kaveh Akbar is on the line.<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

\u00a9 Ellis Rosen<\/p><\/div>\n

Dear Poets,\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

I am the daughter of two wonderful, loving Chinese parents, and I have a supportive boyfriend and caring friends. But still, I somehow find myself dealing with daily feelings of anxiety and inadequacy. I am a humanities major with an uncertain future and less-than-average academics, and I am faced with continual feelings of shame and embarrassment about the lack of effort I put into my studies. My parents are intellectual giants who came from nothing and worked their way up into high-earning jobs so that they could give me the best possible education and life, and I feel as if I have squandered the opportunities they have worked so hard for me to have. To make things worse, they are extremely supportive of my choices, and are constantly caring and understanding. How do I deal with my fears that I will never be able to honor my parents by becoming more successful than them?\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely,\u00a0<\/em>
\nDutiful Daughter<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear DD,<\/p>\n

\u201cTo make things worse, they are extremely supportive of my choices\u201d is such a strange and quintessentially immigrant utterance\u2014I am smiling with affectionate recognition. What to do with the guilt we feel that our lives are often so much easier than the lives of our parents? How can any of our fears, anxieties, lonelinesses be worth mentioning when theirs have been so great? For you (and often, for myself), I prescribe Hai-Dang Phan\u2019s \u201cMy Father\u2019s \u2018Norton Introduction to Literature,\u2019 Third Edition (1981).<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\n
Certain words give him trouble: cannibals<\/em>, puzzles<\/em>, sob<\/em>,<\/div>\n
bosom<\/em>, martyr<\/em>, deteriorate<\/em>, shake<\/em>, astonishes<\/em>, vexed<\/em>, ode<\/em>\u200a\u200a\u200a\u200a…<\/div>\n
These he looks up and studiously annotates in Vietnamese.<\/div>\n
Ravish<\/em> means c\u01b0\u1edbp \u0111o\u1ea1t<\/em>; shits<\/em> is like when you have to \u0111i \u1ec9a<\/em>;<\/div>\n
mourners<\/em> are those whom we say are full of bu\u1ed3n r\u1ea7u<\/em>.<\/div>\n
For \u201ceven the like precurse of feared events\u201d think b\u00e1o tr\u01b0\u1edbc<\/em>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
Its thin translucent pages are webbed with his marginalia,<\/div>\n
graphite ghosts of a living hand, and the notes often sound<\/div>\n
just like him: \u201cAll depend on how look at thing,\u201d he pencils<\/div>\n
after \u201cI first surmised the Horses\u2019 Heads\u2009\/\u200aWere toward Eternity\u2006\u2014\u201d<\/div>\n
His slanted handwriting is generally small, but firm and clear.<\/div>\n
His pencil is a No. 2, his preferred Hi-Liter, arctic blue.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I love the father of this poem\u2014he seems a cousin to the father in Hayden\u2019s \u201cThose Winter Sundays<\/a>,\u201d each bringing \u201clove\u2019s austere and lonely offices\u201d into brilliant, rending clarity. The father in Phan\u2019s poem writes in small, firm pencil marks, has survived \u201creeducation camp\u201d and his own daughter\u2019s death. Coming to an American university to improve his family\u2019s lives, he takes \u201cIntro Lit (\u2018for fun\u2019), Comp Sci (\u2018for job\u2019).\u201d This is monumental\u2014the poem tells us that its speaker, the father\u2019s son, has become a poet and poetry teacher. What was a semester\u2019s reprieve from hard science for the father becomes a life for his son! Isn\u2019t this the dream of every immigrant parent? For your children to be free and secure enough to spend their hours pursuing what nourishes them?<\/p>\n

Even though my parents might still not-so-secretly be holding out hope I\u2019ll become a doctor or scientist (this column is the closest I\u2019ll ever come), I know ultimately they care most about me being safe and satisfied in my living. It sounds like your parents love and celebrate YOU, the you of you, not your CV or your transcript. I suspect that the most loving gift you could give them would be to work yourself away from the feelings of inadequacy and shame you describe\u2014to fully and joyfully inhabit your station, with all its myriad demands and vicissitudes. When your parents see you living happily, unburdened, it will give them a joy deeper and more lasting than any academic or professional achievement.<\/p>\n

\u2014KA<\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

Dear Poets,<\/em><\/p>\n

There is a boy (isn’t there always). I met him a few months ago and was instantly drawn to him, but we only had two nights in the same place before he went to work abroad in a very small town. Since then, we’ve been doing something nuts – we’ve been answering the\u00a036 Questions to Fall in Love<\/a>\u00a0via letters sent back and forth. I’m grappling with the fact that I’m falling in love with someone I barely know in person, and not sure how to tell what love really is, in this situation. Do you have any poems that speak to the power of words? Or even just uncertain love in general?<\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely,\u00a0<\/em>
\nWooed by the Words<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear WW,<\/p>\n

What a happy and terrifying and miraculous and strange situation to find yourself in! In lieu of the typical bouquet of platitudes about leaning into new love and lending the chips fall where they may, I give you \u201cThe moon rose over the bay. I had a lot of feelings.<\/a>\u201d by Donika Kelly.<\/p>\n

\n
I write my name in the sand:<\/div>\n
Donika Kelly<\/em>. I watch eighteen seagulls<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
skim the sandbar and lift low in the sky.<\/div>\n
I pick up a pebble that looks like a green egg.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
To the ditch lily I say I am in love<\/em>.<\/div>\n
To the Jeep parked haphazardly on the narrow<\/div>\n
street I am in love<\/em>. To the roses, white<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
petals rimmed brown, to the yellow lined<\/div>\n
pavement, to the house trimmed in gold I am<\/em><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
in love<\/em>.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It\u2019s a poem about love, about the way love affords us astonishing precision in some arenas\u2014Kelly\u2019s speaker doesn\u2019t just watch \u201cseagulls \/ skim the sandbar,\u201d she watches \u201ceighteen<\/em> seagulls \/ skim the sandbar\u201d\u2014and totally overwhelms precision in others. She shouts with a \u201crough calculus\u201d instead of the precise arithmetic of those counted water birds, and her loving washes over everything with equal abandon: the ditch lily, the Jeep, the house trimmed in gold.<\/p>\n

It sounds like perhaps you\u2019re in a similar place, falling fully without being burdened by the weight of practical thinking. Most people only get to access that state a handful of times in a life\u2014my suggestion would be to enjoy it as completely as you\u2019re able, to move through your new joy counting birds and deliriously shouting at roses.<\/p>\n

-KA<\/p>\n

Dearest Poets,<\/em><\/p>\n

I have discovered recently that I am emotionally illiterate. My moods have become volatile, swinging from mania to depression to anger, for reasons I cannot explain. It has hurt the people around me, and happened so fast that I was unable to recognize it. Part of this is a mental illness that I am doing my best to mitigate, but I refuse to blame this solely on an imbalance, and am finding it difficult to unpack and parse my own emotions. It feels like looking in the mirror and seeing a stranger, or even a villain. Is there a poem for not recognizing myself? For acknowledging that I have come up lacking, and for wanting to change?<\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you,<\/em>
\nBereft<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Bereft,<\/p>\n

I want to couch this whole answer with the hope that you\u2019re speaking to a professional as well, not just a random internet poet. No poem is going to make the amends it sounds like you might need to make, nor will it do the difficult and time-consuming work of rigorously uprooting your painful (to you and to the people around you) patterns of behavior. That is the journey that lies ahead today, and I commend you for taking these first steps. You speak of \u201cblame\u201d and \u201cvillains,\u201d but each is an instance of language used to flatten nuance rather than carefully interrogate it. I offer Suji Kwock Kim\u2019s \u201cMonologue for an Onion.\u201d It begins:<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t mean to make you cry.
\nI mean nothing, but this has not kept you
\nFrom peeling away my body, layer by layer,<\/p>\n

The tears clouding your eyes as the table fills
\nWith husks, cut flesh, all the debris of pursuit.
\nPoor deluded human: you seek my heart.<\/p>\n

Hunt all you want. Beneath each skin of mine
\nLies another skin: I am pure onion–pure union
\nOf outside and in, surface and secret core.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I choose this poem for two reasons. One, the incredulity of its opening line, \u201cI don\u2019t mean to make you cry,\u201d exemplifies perfectly the sort of non-apology that is characteristic of the chronically quick-to-anger. Two, it demonstrates how the process of peeling away layers of oneself often reveals more layers\u2014\u201cBeneath each skin of mine \/ Lies another skin\u201d\u2014or something even more baffling: \u201ca maze of chambers, blood, and love.\u201d It\u2019s a magisterial, relentless poem, and you may need its sort of searching attention for your own excavations. I don\u2019t know what you will discover beating at your core or how long it will take to get there, but I wish you the courage and stamina to face it full on.<\/p>\n

-KA<\/p>\n

Want more? Read earlier\u00a0installments of\u00a0Poetry Rx<\/a>.\u00a0<\/i>Need a poem?\u00a0Write to us<\/a>! Next week, Sarah Kay will be answering questions.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Kaveh Akbar\u2019s poems have appeared recently in\u00a0<\/em>The\u00a0New<\/span>\u00a0Yorker<\/span>,<\/em>\u00a0Poetry,<\/em>\u00a0t<\/em>he<\/em>\u00a0New<\/span>\u00a0York Times,<\/em>\u00a0the\u00a0<\/em>Nation,\u00a0and elsewhere. His first book is\u00a0<\/em>Calling a Wolf a Wolf. Born in Tehran, Iran, he teaches at\u00a0Purdue<\/span>\u00a0University and in the low-residency M.F.A. programs at Randolph College and Warren Wilson.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In our column\u00a0Poetry Rx, readers\u00a0write in\u00a0with a specific emotion, and our resident poets\u2014Sarah Kay, Kaveh Akbar, and Claire Schwartz\u2014take turns prescribing the perfect poems to match. This week,\u00a0Kaveh Akbar is on the line. Dear Poets,\u00a0 I am the daughter of two wonderful, loving Chinese parents, and I have a supportive boyfriend and caring friends. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1426,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33114],"tags":[37516,37514,37519,37515,37518,37517],"class_list":["post-129444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-rx","tag-donika-kelly","tag-hai-dang-phan","tag-monologue-for-an-onion","tag-my-fathers-norton-introduction-to-literature","tag-suji-kwock-kim","tag-the-moon-rose-over-the-bay-i-had-a-lot-of-feelings"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nPoetry Rx: Poor Deluded Human, You Seek My Heart<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Poems for not meeting your parents' expectations, for the uncertainty of wild love, and for realizing you have hurt the ones you care about.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/20\/poetry-rx-poor-deluded-human-you-seek-my-heart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Poetry Rx: Poor Deluded Human, You Seek My Heart by Kaveh Akbar\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"September 20, 2018 \u2013 In our column\u00a0Poetry Rx, readers\u00a0write in\u00a0with a specific emotion, and our resident poets\u2014Sarah Kay, Kaveh Akbar, and Claire Schwartz\u2014take turns\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/20\/poetry-rx-poor-deluded-human-you-seek-my-heart\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-09-20T16:45:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/poetry_rx_2-1024x493-1-2.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"493\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Kaveh Akbar\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Kaveh Akbar\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/20\/poetry-rx-poor-deluded-human-you-seek-my-heart\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/20\/poetry-rx-poor-deluded-human-you-seek-my-heart\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Kaveh Akbar\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/ebb494db2b2505d720b25dcc7efcad4f\"},\"headline\":\"Poetry Rx: Poor Deluded Human, You Seek My Heart\",\"datePublished\":\"2018-09-20T16:45:08+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/20\/poetry-rx-poor-deluded-human-you-seek-my-heart\/\"},\"wordCount\":1606,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2018\/09\/20\/poetry-rx-poor-deluded-human-you-seek-my-heart\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/09\/poetry_rx_2-1024x493-1-2-1024x493.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Donika Kelly\",\"Hai-Dang Phan\",\"Monologue for an Onion\",\"My Father\u2019s \u2018Norton Introduction to Literature\",\"Suji Kwock Kim\",\"The moon rose over the bay. 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