{"id":133831,"date":"2019-02-21T11:46:34","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T16:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=133831"},"modified":"2019-02-21T11:46:34","modified_gmt":"2019-02-21T16:46:34","slug":"poetry-rx-still-somehow-we-breathe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2019\/02\/21\/poetry-rx-still-somehow-we-breathe\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Rx: Still, Somehow, We Breathe"},"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, Sarah Kay is on the line.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

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

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

I recently had an uncomfortable interaction with a member of my fianc\u00e9\u2019s family. This person met my dad, and then later commented to me that they were surprised by \u201cthe way he looked.\u201d What they meant was, even though they knew of my pacific-islander ancestry, they were surprised my father was brown. I have been stuck on this interaction, and on other moments in my life when someone has made thinly veiled racist comments to me assuming that my light skin color means I am willing to listen to their derogatory, bigoted bullshit. Is there a poem to help with the frustration and guilt of moving through a world that affords me more safety and privilege simply because I was born with lighter skin than my dad and the other people whom I love dearly? <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely,
\n<\/span>Passing Through Life<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Dear Passing,<\/span><\/p>\n

I am sorry that you had to experience that moment of disappointment with a member of your future family. I am sorry that this isn\u2019t the first time\u2014and likely won\u2019t be the last time\u2014you\u2019re faced with other people\u2019s racism. I empathize with your desire to differentiate yourself from that way of thinking. As nonblack people of color with light skin and\/or \u201cpassing privilege,\u201d it is our responsibility to take advantage of moments when we can be the ones educating, building empathy, and confronting antiblackness and racism, so that those burdens are not always (\/only) placed on the black and brown people we love. I want to share with you a poem by Danez Smith, called <\/span>\u201cWhat Was Said on the Bus Stop.\u201d<\/span><\/a> The entire poem is beautiful, but I want to point you to the middle of the poem, where Danez writes: <\/span><\/p>\n

solidarity is a word, a lot of people say it
\n<\/span>i\u2019m not sure what it means in the flesh
\n<\/span>i know i love & have cried for my friends
\n<\/span>their browns a different brown than mine
\n<\/span>that i have danced their dances when taught
\n<\/span>& tasted how their mothers use rice
\n<\/span>different than mine. i know sometimes
\n<\/span>i can\u2019t see beyond my own pain, pass
\n<\/span>but black & white, that bullets
\n<\/span>love any flesh. i don\u2019t know how to write this poem
\n<\/span>i want to say something about all of us
\n<\/span>without speaking for all of us, i want to
\n<\/span>say i know it\u2019s foolish to compare.
\n<\/span>(what advice do the drowned have for the burned?
\n<\/span>what gossip is there between the hung & the buried?)
\n<\/span>& i want to reach across that great distance
\n<\/span>that is sometimes an ocean & sometimes just a few inches
\n<\/span>& say, look. your people, my people, all that has happened
\n<\/span>to us & still make love under rusted moons, still pull
\n<\/span>children from the mothers & name them,
\n<\/span>still we teach them to dance, & your pain is not mine
\n<\/span>& is no less, & i pray to my god that your god
\n<\/span>blesses you with mercy, & i have tasted your food & understand
\n<\/span>how it is a good home, & i don\u2019t know your language
\n<\/span>but i understand your songs, & i cried when they came
\n<\/span>for your uncles, & i wanted revenge when you buried your niece
\n<\/span>& i want the world to burn in child\u2019s memory
\n<\/span>& i have stood by you in the soft shawl of morning
\n<\/span>& still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, still, somehow, we breathe.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This isn\u2019t a poem to assuage your guilt about passing. But it is a reminder that solidarity in the flesh means honoring those you love by making room for their food, their dances, their people, their grief, and their rage alongside your own. Though it is different, though it is foolish to compare, though it is impossible to speak for them, or for anyone, it is not foolish to love fiercely. It is not foolish to stand up for and stand by a different brown than your own. It is necessary. And it is the only way any of us will survive.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014S.K.<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

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

I\u2019ve recently moved to the other side of the world from my closest friends and, despite the various different technologies keeping us together, I am feeling helpless to provide the emotional support they often need. I feel I am watching, useless, as they experience hardship and struggle. During times when words feel empty, what I really want to do is provide my presence and a hug. I need a poem for these times when words won\u2019t do.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Sincerely,<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

An Aching Friend<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Aching Friend,<\/span><\/p>\n

I want to recommend to you a poem by Rachel Eliza Griffiths called \u201c<\/span>Chosen Family<\/span><\/a>.\u201d I love this poem in its entirety, but especially want to share this section with you: <\/span><\/p>\n

When you find your people
\n<\/span>they won\u2019t ask you where you came from because they\u2019ll already know
\n<\/span>& if they don\u2019t they\u2019ll be busy putting good food on your plate & asking you
\n<\/span>if you\u2019re hungry or broke. When you find your people they\u2019ll tell you
\n<\/span>to use any bathroom you want, marry anybody you want, work side-by-side
\n<\/span>together for long hours in close quarters without any fear of being harmed.
\n<\/span>When you find your people they\u2019ll throw the ball to you, offer you
\n<\/span>their love song & say you need to listen to this track & dance with us
\n<\/span>whether or not you know all the steps. When you find your people
\n<\/span>they\u2019ll say Do You Remember & you\u2019ll say Yes until you remember together
\n<\/span>the different ways the whole thing happened. When you find your people
\n<\/span>they\u2019ll say wear whatever you want, wear the tightest dress, wear the hot pants,
\n<\/span>wear your birthday suit. They\u2019ll say we love your skin & drag & natural hair
\n<\/span>& we love you naturally so please just live & don\u2019t let anybody kill you
\n<\/span>or tell you they\u2019ve killed you & you\u2019re just fine the dead way you are. When you
\n<\/span>find your people don\u2019t leave them & don\u2019t let them off the hook when they are
\n<\/span>in the wrong. When they are trying to take themselves out of the world
\n<\/span>lay your hands on them & call them yours & yours & yours.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This poem is a reaffirmation of what you already know: that if you are lucky enough to find your people, it is vital to hold onto them. The poem doesn\u2019t offer an easy solution for how to do this when you are far away, but here is what I will offer: the number one thing I\u2019ve learned from years of being on the road, is that thinking about the people you love is not the same thing as showing them you love them. And there is no better way to show someone you love them, there is no bigger gift, than your time. Spending time with the people you love is the best thing you can give them and yourself. That means traveling to them, when you can. That means sometimes calling them to talk, sometimes calling just to listen, and sometimes calling just to sing into their voicemail, \u201cI am thinking of you and they are playing our song in this caf\u00e9.\u201d It means making them care packages that are personally designed with their preferences in mind. It means sending them videos you think they might love, or poems you think they might need. So that they can feel the way you lay your hands on them, even across great distances, and know that they are yours and yours and yours.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2014S.K.<\/span><\/p>\n

*<\/p>\n

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

I need more feeling in my life. I live in a nice, midsize city, work for a nonprofit that makes me feel fulfilled and busy, have casual friends and acquaintances and a supportive family. I am comfortable in my home, always have enough to eat, can afford to buy books and take weekend trips, and have hobbies I partake in. I am blessed, I realize this, but I am also empty. I don\u2019t have time to travel to strange exciting places, and I have not yet met someone whom I can love deeply and richly. Please send me poetry that makes me feel excitement about the world around me, or poetry that, in economic ways (I really hate self-indulgent, long-winded poems) expresses deep, deep feeling. <\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Thank you,
\n<\/span>Content, in need of content<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dear Content,<\/span><\/p>\n

I want to share with you a poem by Elizabeth Acevedo called, \u201c<\/span>You Mean You Don\u2019t Weep at the Nail Salon?<\/span><\/a>\u201d which begins: <\/span><\/p>\n

it\u2019s the being alone, i think, the emails but not voices. dominicans be funny, the
\n<\/span>way we love to touch\u2014every greeting a cheek kiss, a shoulder clap, a loud.<\/span><\/p>\n

it gots to be my period, the bloating, the insurance commercial where the
\n<\/span>husband comes home after being deployed, the last of the gouda gone, the
\n<\/span>rejection letter, the acceptance letter, the empty inbox.<\/span><\/p>\n

a dream, these days. to work at home is a privilege, i remind myself.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In your letter you describe a unique kind of absence that I feel very familiar with: everything is fine, but something is not right. There is a loneliness or emptiness sitting somewhere beneath the good work and good books and casual friends. Elizabeth carries a similar disquiet, it seems, and I love this poem for the way she searches for the cause, but ultimately doesn\u2019t put her finger on it. Instead, she shows us a moment of shared tenderness between strangers at the nail salon, when that loneliness rises to the surface. I don\u2019t have a solution for how to fill the emptiness you\u2019re feeling. But I do think that recognizing it and permitting it to bubble to the surface when it needs to, is certainly a better way of navigating it than trying to bury it. It helps me to know that regardless of the many possible causes, there are others (whom I love and respect) who carry a similar loneliness at times. Reading the final lines of Elizabeth\u2019s poem make me feel like it is <\/span>me<\/span><\/i> whose hand she has reached across time and space for, in kinship, in emptiness, in hunger.<\/span><\/p>\n

when the manicurist holds my hand, making my nails a lilliputian abstract,
\n<\/span>i close my fingers around hers, disrupting the polish, too tight i know then, too tight to hold a stranger, but she squeezes back & doesn\u2019t let go & so finally i can.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u2014<\/span><\/i>S.K.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Want more? Read earlier\u00a0installments of\u00a0Poetry Rx<\/a>.\u00a0Need your own poem?\u00a0Write to us<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n

Sarah Kay<\/a>\u00a0is a poet and educator from New York City. She is the codirector and\u00a0founder of\u00a0Project VOICE<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0author of four books of poetry, including\u00a0<\/em>B,<\/em>\u00a0No Matter the Wreckage,\u00a0<\/em>The Type, and\u00a0<\/em>All Our Wild Wonder.<\/em><\/p>\n

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

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