DAVID
RUDOLPH Reviews
Souvenir by Aimee Suzara
(WordTech Editions, 2014)
In Souvenir, poet Aimee Suzara extends to
us a memento of her experience, thus far, as an American soul. She is an
extension of strong, independent Filipino lineage. Her parents eloped and fled
to America’s eastern shores as had the other eight siblings from their Yankee
fouled sea town. Her story is about her mother and father, their heritage, and youthful
exodus and ultimate transcontinental migration to the West. This is where and
when her memories and judgments begin to form -- the words reflected within this
work are revelations from her constructs of these events-- interposed through
the gazing eyes of Imperialist succession. We are along as she and her parents
have their own turn at manifest destiny and it’s marking, sorting, and
collecting that will forever enfold them as Imperialist as well. She knows that
we can never look right again, we have forsaken our homes and now we are the
strangers.
Suzara’s
father is a successful surgeon. She has not experienced each stereotypic
struggle that we might expect from immigration’s yoke. Free of addictions and
blessed with a supreme education, her story digs in deeper and broader ground.
Stooped low, bent, working fervently, Suzara has published a masterful act of
organizational creativity.
This
book attends to her message by an interwoven fashioning of poetic prose,
poetry, field notes, including additional elements of photography and
ethnography. Notes from the archive:
Negrito
Pygmy
Hominid between primate and human”
The
genius of the book is in this interweave of her insightful anger and angst
against the European pretentions on display at the St Louis 1904 World’s Fair. She
pays keen attention to the indifferent effects born of the Darwinist constructs
conveniently in vogue during and following the Spanish and American
colonization of her native islands. From the dust covered archives of the
Missouri History Museum, Suzara uncovers the heinous folly of American presumption
fully and enthusiastically exhibited. This act tips from a conquering Admiral’s
hat, spilling near naked dancers (“the missing links”) like blood off her
operating table, she turns out the scalpeled skin of wrong turns, wrong people,
and wrong reasons.
From beyond the bamboo
rail,
The women gaze and stare
–
They like the wind
blowing our cloths
Revealing nature’s
share.
We are
tugged through a fouled Philippian river, into the nuclear wasted neighborhoods
of her Western youth and desert edges roused in cultural and feral death.
We passed the pile of
white things,
The gaping head the green c9ouch with paling
Drooping upholstery,
The woken frame,
innards exposed, we trudged
We are
delighted by her sharp revelations of what makes a heritage -- she pays psychic
homage to those states traveled and the motels overnighted in the same breath as
Lewis and Clark subterfuge. The Chalet-styled house, king-sized satin comforters,
papa’s guns and scotch whiskey, her iconic rock music and thick braids do not
necessarily make a home. She leaves us with the feeling that she will always wonder
of a life held afar forever. This book keeps us in touch with the youngest
America. Pay attention, she is figuring it out (she’s as stubborn as a rooted lychee
tree).
*****
David Rudolph is.
No comments:
Post a Comment