In Our Own Words

Starfishy.com

In Our Own Words is third in a series (A Generation Defining Itself) whose editor has purposed to document a generation of poets—born from 1960 to 1982—"a generation caught between the excesses of the post World War II baby boomers and the uncertainty of the future." 

In reading In Our Own Words, I  noticed three things right away. I noticed the mission, as in the growing body of work in this series whose "voice" continues to grow  louder and now approaches five hundred strong. I noticed the variety of these voices—that have spoken from all over the globe ( and I found the mix of fonts and font sizes that was used to represent the pieces to be an excellent visual device in individualizing the many voices). And I noticed that woven throughout the many subjects and disparate voices there is indeed a common "touchstone"; that the contributor's "sum" is greater, taken together  in this mighty roar, than their individual pieces. 

This mighty roar is made up of tributaries of thought, currents of consciousness. If the voice of this piece is as a mighty roar of waters, then reading this piece was like walking through a maze with the sound of the waters always with me —ahead, behind, surrounding me. And with a work of this magnitude, a walk this long—through the psyche of a generation,  it's to be expected,  it's inevitable, that there will be a pebble or two that gets in the sandal of the wanderer through these poems. There were dead ends in this maze and wrong turns. But overall, I found navigating through it rewarding. 

Here is what the editor has said about those pebbles, dead ends and wrong turns: A few reviewers have been critical of the overall "literary quality" of this series. This has, in fact, been something that this series has sought to avoid, being a compilation of the "state of literature". A documentary is obliged to present all facets and faces of a generation." 

I noticed something else. There are many of my peers from the online poetry community, "net poets", many familiar names from the best ezines, (Anjana Basou, Arlene Ang, Michaela A. Gabriel, Erin Elizabeth, Dancing Bear, CJ Sage, Pooja Mittal, Kathleen Isacson, Michael Graber and Wong Chen Seong, to name a few) in this collection. And I was excited to realize that
many of the very people I enjoy reading the most are around the same age as I am, that we have this in common and that we have a reference point with other poets of our generation across the globe. And I marvel at the scope of the unity. What other generation of poets has had that global breadth of solidarity? The poets I mentioned by name are from Calcutta, India, Spinea, Italy, Vienna, Austria, New York, USA, California, USA, Auckland, New Zealand, Chicago, USA, Tennessee, USA, and Johor Bahru, Malaysia, respectively. 

Our generation has been defined by *others* in every medium (we are the "King of All Media" generation) but this is one instance where the medium through which definition is attempted is writhing with the the many headed Medusa head itself. This series is a shiny surfaced shield by which others can look at that Medusa head without turning to stone, in other words, they can
look with understanding. No catchy slogans to define, no all encompassing letter designation, just the hiss of those snake heads that rise to a crescendo that becomes a flood of revelation. 
 

Here, a few of the heads speak: 

What I Want 
(an excerpt) 

Wanting is a wound happy enough 
To bleed into its own mouth. 
I want to be white but 
I was born a red penance, a sweet stain, 
Which speaks ten dead languages, 
Tap dances before strangers like 
A jigger of venom which 
Erases it own raw face. 
I want to stop living like a scab; 
Hard, shiny, born around a hurt. 

Magdalena Alagna 
New York, NY, USA 


cleaning 

i throw out the toothpaste. 
it's such a dreary picture: dull 
razorblades and the half-empty 
tube in the trash can. 

no matter how much i wipe, 
the mirror remains blind to changes 
and stubbornly shows your face 
next to mine. 
your little hairs still refuse 
to disappear down the drain: 
i'll save the water for 
drowning your fingerprints. 

it's always the same: 
the washing machine sings 
sad songs, the tiles mock me 
with their whiteness, still betraying 
every step you took. 

Michaela A. Gabriel 
Vienna, Austria 


Aspiration 

The crow sits on the cathedral spire 
to show us that the highest temple 
we can build for good 
has the potential to be 
the resting place of evil. 

Joel Pace 
Eau Claire WI, USA 


Lifting The Sky 
(an excerpt) 

Rain dapples the asphalt with night. 
I try to write, to push the dark tundra of sky 
into perfect bars of papyrus, my mockingbird of prose. 
I press my wrists, breathe into candles, the shadows press 
like specters across my sterile walls. I even press 
my pen, like a knife, into my tender gutters of throat, 
thinking if I draw lines, like incisions, I could write 
you with words less trite. 

Erin Elizabeth 
Binghampton, NY, USA 

"Oh, but you need me!" cried the street 
But people trampled it in mud 

The cloud sang, "Let there be spring!" 
But someone poked it with smoke 

The sun hissed, sinking in blood 
But we hadn't uttered a word, 

Yeerlan Askarbekov 
Altamy, Rep. of Kazakstan 
(trans. Andrew E Morozov) 
 

In Our Own Words, a collection of lyrics, essays, poetry and verse, is available through MW Enterprises for $12.95 and can be purchased 
online at starfishy.com

 
Back to Index Copyright © 2001 Annette Marie Hyder
If you would like to see a poetry book reviewed here,
contact: Annette Marie Hyder adhyder@frontiernet.net