Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Obits is a collection of prose poems in which a speaker attempts and fails to write obituaries for women and others whose obituaries or memorials are missing, or who are only represented as statistics. She considers mass deaths, fictional characters like Laura Palmer, the Stoics, and more. The speaker also considers what she sees as a failure to mourn her aunt, a woman who she knows less about than any of the people she researches, as well as her own Indonesian heritage, and finally she tries to give an account of herself as a lyric poet in mourning. That is, she asks, what does it mean to be an "I" mourning a "you" when both of us have been 'othered' and the act of writing might be an act of othering in itself?
Synopsis
Winner of the 2019 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award
In Obits. a speaker tries and fails to write obituaries for those whose memorials are missing, those who are represented only as statistics. She considers victims of mass deaths, fictional characters, and her own aunt, asking what does it mean to be an 'I' mourning a 'you' when both have been othered? Centring vulnerability, the various answers to this question pass through trauma, depression, and the experience of being a mixed-race queer woman.
Synopsis
WINNER OF THE 2019 GERALD LAMPERT MEMORIAL AWARD
In Obits. a speaker tries and fails to write obituaries for those whose memorials are missing, those who are represented only as statistics. She considers victims of mass deaths, fictional characters, and her own aunt, asking what does it mean to be an 'I' mourning a 'you' when both have been othered? Centring vulnerability, the various answers to this question pass through trauma, depression, and the experience of being a mixed-race queer woman.