my mother occupies the passenger seat. my brother and i
stick in the back.
the radio babbles and sings between us. she is estranged, returning
and we are revenants to a place inside a narration contrived
to read like non-fiction, a continuous telling since one
mouth inside another, one word emigrating from another's vowels.
a paper place we've glossed in novels, in atlases
materialized into sweltering road printed under us, the car
horns blasting past, the black faces that map ours for relevance, the faces that
could belong to our relatives faces we are instructed not to trust, into
whose night we are cautioned against venturing, whose have–not we must not
tempt. my mother banters with the
river driver, her voice
angles into accent, some words chop others stretch. she ent
home, but her return bends
here, her speech soaks into the air near the equator
1. Read the poem out loud. How do the blank spaces and line breaks influence your reading?
2. The subject of language is important in this poem. The radio “babbles”, the mother’s voice “angles into accent.” Do you or does anyone in your own family speak languages other than English or French? If so, what is your own relationship to that language?
3. The poem describes family history as “a narration contrived / to read like non fiction.” How does fiction enter into our tellings of true stories? Is it there from the start?
4. The poem’s title already suggests that return may not be possible. How else does the poem trouble the idea of coming home after family migrations?
5. What you read as this poem is an excerpt from a longer work that starts with:
this piece is / is not about the past, and it is / is not about the future, but it is /
is not about a stasis all waves syncopate. this piece awash in ways
In light of this, and the poem itself, what do you think of the supposed error of writing river instead of driver?
6. The poem describes moving from atlas pages onto an actual road. Find a map of a place that means something to you. Perhaps it’s your current neighbourhood or region, or your birthplace, or even a map of a fictional world. Write a poem inspired by its contours, images, and place names.