if there is no memory, it did not happen

what is so intense to me about "if there is no memory, it did not happen," is, at first, the definitiveness of that title. with the IF this, THEN this formula, i kinda expect a poem to start out with a vague recollection, a difficult memory pieced together and exemplified via roundabout language (which does occur, in a sense, later). but instead, chang starts out with a proclamation: "mother took us / and locked us in the basement." there are no bones about it. that happened. and then everything unfolds, the distinct details and the not-so-distinct. this is a location that has a specificity to it, the functions are known. dank, hollow, where onions and yams cool. but there are also blurs. and that's where the question of "are you sure?" "you don't know what you're saying," comes in. you read something strange in those blurs, / you read a story / and not the truth. there is an outside questioning here, one that continues to diminish the felt experiences and exacerbates the meaning of the blurred pieces of the puzzle, what's not-remembered, what's confused, accusing the subject of self-pity. i think what's so moving, to me, about this poem, is the interrelationship between very concrete details (like the line that opens the poem, and others throughout) and more conjecture-type/abstract ones. ("she was... small enough to close in a cupboard"). it speaks to the experience of piecing together concrete details and inferences in complex memory recollection. the thing about this poem is, there IS memory, but there's still the thought that IT did not happen. because there's a question of authenticity, existence of the memory/actuality of the memory/corroboration of the memory in the first place.



i know that there's this whole motif of nearsightedness that is both literal and figurative, but i'm just really drawn to this idea of memory, selective consciousness/belief/recognition of experience, et al.

i really appreciate the deliberateness of language and the crafted, intentional vagueness of jennifer chang's poems. as much as i know that it can be frustrating when writing isn't clearly explicit, i think there's a braveness to a sort of removed voice that is at a distance from a subject, particularly when it comes to writing that attempts to piece together fragmented memories, especially familial ones, and ones that are difficult. there is a definite time and place for implicit voices. sometimes, it isn't possible to say outright: "this. this. that. this." and we exist in these liminal spaces, what i think chang cultivates as unction. she cutlivates this dissociation and removedness through her syntax and language choices. she says parts of a song i once knew. it's indirect, removed, not present.

 i think when we're mentally working through these experiences the issue of authenticity often arises, and i appreciate how that is weaved within these poems, that the outside questions and assertions (that are also questions/ideas we internalize and ask/accuse of ourselves) come into these poems--you're making it up... whose arms disappear? you were simply born that way. i think these external and internal questions and assumptions are part of what makes it so hard to definitively write about difficult, familial, childhood, etc experiences. when we're constantly asking ourselves if our experiences are authentic and real, it becomes difficult to externalize them.

i think i'm more drawn to the abstract, internal questioning in these poems than to the discrete details. i think both ground the other: the succinct "these are the facts" and then the in-between kinda blurriness of other details/inferences really just make sense to me.

i'm just overwhelmed with appreciation and want to go into every line of these poems, but instead, i will just highlight some things, lines in particular, that resonate with me:

-THE PAIN OF SPACE-- yes. perfect. i feel like i know exactly what this is.
-i am branched / and branchless in / this ecstasy of absence--i swallow air / until my hunger is     an insatiable question.
-i avoid / to avoid. don't i?
-also the whole poem "what is the landscape works for what i have left"
-i have been missing twenty years.
-if i write a list, / i will lose the thing,    the deisre/ for retrieval 
-also I am tired of the past. / I am so tired.
but it never goes away, even if you find a way to write it.