Reading & Rereading
Is it obsession, or an act of devotion?
“Beauty takes me to the beautiful
And I love your love
freed from itself and its signs”
—Mahmoud Darwish, Mural, transl by Berger & Hammami
It doesn’t take reading much poetry for lines to start floating back to you, casting their eerie, gorgeous glow on a deceivingly mundane moment. Before I’d had a traceable thought about two strangers parting near an exit sign, Darwish’s words were echoing in my mind: “And I love your love/ freed from itself and its signs.” What is a love freed from itself? What signs bind love?
I’m not sure, but for a second I fell in love with two strangers and their prolonged goodbye. What if I had shouted at them: “I LOVE YOUR LOVE/ FREED FROM ITSELF AND ITS SIGNS”?? Ok, I held back—it wasn’t the time to cause a scene. But the lines burrow, forming a rope I am following into a cave in myself.
I’ve been reading and rereading Darwish’s “Mural,” alone and alongside other poets I adore. Last month, a small group of us got together on Zoom and read the whole long poem aloud. When was the last time you read aloud with someone? Before that, I had mostly done this in workshops, like a workshop I taught on Devotion & Play where we read Aracelis Girmay’s “You Are Who I Love” together. But I rarely read this way with beloveds, gorgeous range of voices filling the space, and I want to change that. Reading aloud, alone and together, is a practice that also feeds the dancer and musician in me—it makes an instrument of language, of my body.
Rereading can feel absurd when I have stacks of unread books from bookstores and libraries and people I adore. But poetry in particular invites, even demands, rereading, and I’ve been leaning into that. Whether it’s obsession, or an act of devotion, it’s a deepening. There are books I return to again & again—among them Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s Song, Sandra Lim’s The Wilderness, Alejandra Pizarnik’s Extracting the Stone of Madness transl by Yvette Siegert, Aracelis Girmay’s The Black Maria, Jenny Xie’s Eye Level, Jack Gilbert’s The Great Fires, Linda Gregg’s All of It Singing—and poems like Joanna Klink’s “On Kingdoms,” Carl Phillips’ “And If I Fall,” Adam Zagajewski’s “Self-Portrait,” Lucille Clifton’s “cutting greens,” Natasha Oladokun’s “I Asked God for the Moon,” Czesław Miłosz’ “Encounter,” Julio Cortázar’s “To Be Read in the Interrogative” transl by Kessler &&&..
Rereading, looking again, feel like a necessary refusal amidst the pace and scroll of to-do lists & what’s next & the myth that forward is the only available direction. My poem “On Self-Deceit” in Shenandoah’s latest issue (note: best viewed on web rather than mobile) emerged in part from my fascination with this photograph by Francesca Woodman that I’ve returned to over the years:
What do you re-read? or what work(s) of art do you return to?
(I’d love to know, if you want to share in the comments<3)
I recently had a phone call about “On Self-Deceit,” & more, with Shenandoah’s brilliant guest editor Siew David Hii. In this unique interview format, questions were removed. I’m still learning how to talk about my first-book-in-progress. Here’s an excerpt from our conversation:
My first book—not yet published—is called Anchor Baby. I’ve been grappling with place, including bodies of water, and ideas of home and belonging. Questions about belonging, even to oneself, and how to reckon with imposed scripts for women, good daughterhood, sexuality.
How we might betray ourselves…
I have an obsession with landscapes and ideas of the landscapes inside of us. In the book I’m also thinking through inheritance, specifically Catholicism, and how religious tradition can discipline us into obedience.
You can read the full interview here.
& ICYMI, my poem “The Last Anchoress” from the latest beautiful issue of Gulf Coast:
“Touch is a pilgrimage you make inside yourself.”
Next week I’ll drop the first of the Devotion Chats (more on that monthly offering here), ft. Hua Xi. <3
& If you’re in the PNW, I’m reading with poet & essayist Jane Wong (whose stunning memoir Meet Me Tonight in Atlantic City just came out) this Sunday 5/28 in the Green Room @ The Castle (651 Cleveland St., Port Townsend, WA) 6.30pm