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A Poetic Journey
By Elz Cuya
In celebration of National Poetry Month, I sought a story on
traveling poets -- it wasn't difficult. It seems that the theme
of journeying is a universal one. Here, Joi Barrios, author of Sweetened
Fruit and Other Love Poems, talks about the poetry that speaks through
journeying. While Abena Songbird, author of Bitterroot; A Way to
Heal, talks about the journey that lies in poetry.
Joi
Barrios during her visit to San Francisco at Arkipelago Books.
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Joi Barrios
Traveling to Korea and Japan helped shape the poetry of Joi Barrios,
but it also caused her to take deeper roots in her native homeland.
As a professor of the University of the Philippines, she traveled
to Korea on research, then lived in Japan on a visiting professorship
at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies. Her recently published
book, Sweetened Fruit and Other Love Poems, define and redefine
love against the backdrop of living in a foreign country.
"Poetry can speak of what is not said and yet say more. Poetry also
speaks in a way that can be read in so many different ways." In
a poem entitled Leaving Home, Joi writes, about her experience
in Korea. "The tongue trips over/ this foreign tongue,/ I speak
and my love/ does not hear/ what I say,/ what I do not say./ He
speaks,/ and I cannot tell apart what is true,/ what is not."
"Living in Japan, I really felt like I moved into the First World,"
Joi says. Unlike the Philippines, there is water all the time, and
electricity all the time." But in her travels, she only finds herself
more aware of the Filipino experience, that is, the Filipino experience
in a foreign land.
Many Filipinos leave the Philippines for economic reasons. "There
are Filipino domestic workers in Hong Kong, Filipino entertainers
in Japan, and Filipino nurses in the United States. So those are
the things that I notice. When I'm in Japan, I don't write about
Mt. Fuji, I write about the Filipino dancers in Japan. When I'm
in the states, I don't write about the Golden Gate, I write about
the Filipinos who came before me and tried to make it in the states.
"Travel enriches me because I see things differently, I'm exposed
to new ideas and cultures. But even as I travel, I find myself rooted
even more to Philippine society. Like in an epic, the most traditional
form of poetry, the hero goes out to search for something, encounters
many struggles, dies, then is enlightened to life again. This is
true for many Filipinos who must leave the Philippines. As a writer,
this is true for me too. I have to leave my country, in order to
take root in my country."
Abena
Songbird celebrates her Abenaki and Missisquoi heritage.
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Abena Songbird
Native American Abena Songbird traveled all of her life. This not
only speaks of the nomadic nature of the Native American culture,
but also of the forced relocation of many Indian Tribes. And it
was through this travel that Abena found her identity. At nineteen
she ran away from home to Albuquerque, New Mexico where she heard
an Acoma Pueblo Poet named Simon Ortiz. "He was a tremendous inspiration.
He was speaking about the land, and I found a whole new self in
me. Like I could be a poet myself."
And in this season of Powwow, Indians travel to reunite, sing, dance
and pray. Native Americans reconnect with the natural world and
each other. "The sweet grass and sage, the hawks, crows and eagles
you see on the way, connects you to Mother Earth. You become part
of the journey, roaming like a herd. Dancing together, drumming
together, and sharing stories."
Why is writing so important to her? "I write for survival," she
says. I have to express myself, and pay tribute to what I've gone
through. Sometimes, I wonder where the words come from; it's as
if voices of the past come through me. Sometimes I hear whispers
in dreams, the wind in the trees and water songs-they all feed my
writing."
In a poem that illustrates her need for self-expression, she writes,
"I fell from a great distance. I died more than once and yet I lived
to tell it. And it seemed most urgent, the telling, to get
it right, to connect with someone else who died to live."
Just as Joi Barrios made reference to the journey of the epic hero,
Abena too shares the same point of view. "It's as if I had to die
to old ways of being and old ways of looking at things, and then
journey to a rebirth. Writing allows me to tell the story of that
journey." And for Abena, the journey is within.
To order Sweetened Fruit and Other Love Poems, log on to www.arkipelagobooks.com.
To order Bitterroot; A Way to Heal, log on to www.cedarandsage.qpg.com.
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