"40 Dayz" by Motion

Our last book for the class is "40 Dayz" by the spoken word poet Motion. I'm really looking forward to our last lecture and reading as I can imagine that it will be quite the performance and the class will really enjoy it. But to hold me over until then, I have been enjoying watching the videos she has featured on her YouTube page, which mcsa1991 shared on our Discussion page.
Here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/user/MotionLiveTV

The first video featured on her page, called "Now Hear Dis Sampler" has such a great flow that it sounds like music. I actually watched this video before I cracked open her book, 40 Dayz, and it has really helped me to put her poetry into context. As I'm reading, I imagine her observing Toronto and creating her lines and imagery as the city's movement inspires her. After hearing her perform her poetry herself, I also try to apply the same rhythm to the poems I am reading.

Like Zwicky, her poetry is fluid and full of imagery. It reminds me of this great city and how it can inspire art. She is constantly referencing parks, streets, schools, "the cement skyline" (from "I-ku"), brownstones, and the subway (in "connect the t-dots"). It reminds me how inspiring the city can be and her words make the most ordinary and mundane aspects that I am so used to seeing come alive. This makes her poetry similar to the stories in Lien Chao's The Chinese Knot in the way both writers integrate Toronto as another important character. By including so many recognizable landmarks, both authors succeed at making their works more identifiable as Canadian and add a colourful dimension to their words. The reader who knows or has been to the places described can feel more connected to the author, while the reader who is not so familiar, can imagine, be transported to, and feel the vibrancy of Toronto.

Another aspect of her poems that is prevalent and interesting to me is her references to and descriptions of the female body. In "dream," she uses descriptive diction to describe a woman in comparison to the earth and nature:
" she was skin
she was tree
she was string
taut and tuned
hollow
opened by knife and strain" (20).

She also describes her role as a woman. In "dem say," she discusses her childhood and how she felt so grown up when she was still so young:
"they'd rock their heads and grin
say see
that girl
that girl is a woman
in the body
of a child" (19)

Particularly beautiful is her ode to Maya Angelou called "4maya". She describes the poets and writers that came before her and how their words helped her realize what an impact writing could have on her life.

In "dem say," she makes many references to Black culture (example: "angie davis on the wall....daddy pick my afro") that give me even more of an understanding to where she is coming from. But she also writes of a world outside the city, a world of chaos and confusion that goes on as Toronto is sleeping, in "hedlines": "somewhere/a poet is detained/a woman births the baby of a/ soldier who crouched in the bush" (26).

Motion's poems have so many themes that after reading each one, I feel like I am getting to know more about the poet and what inspires her. I will certainly be rereading them to find even more hidden truth, but I know that I am not getting all I can out of them by simply reading them on the page. Motion is a performance artist and I know that once she actually comes into our classroom and we discuss the meaning behind her work, it will deepen my understanding of their content and further help me appreciate their beauty.

Questions I hope to ask Motion in a couple of weeks or so:

How does living in Toronto affect your writing?
What kind of environment fosters the most creativity for you?
How did you start writing poetry?
Does the poem come alive to you when you perform it? How is this different from putting them together in your collection, 40 Dayz?

"Shopping for Sabzi: Stories" by Nitin Deckha

This is one of the last books in the course and its themes are easy to connect to the other books in the course such as: Barnacle Love, The Chinese Knot and Natasha and Other Stories. These have been four my favourite books so far and it is clear why: these books are easy to relate to and are full of wit and humor. As a young person in a minority, I can especially relate to the themes of love, sex, relationships, friendship, family, and culture in Shopping for Sabzi. It has not been a chore to read this book, but a pleasure. I am about halfway and can’t wait to get to the other stories. Each one focuses on a distinctly different character from the story before, but all are interesting, compelling and well developed, despite the short length of the stories. Deckha is one of the only authors able to understand today’s young people and how they speak and translate that onto the pages of his book. Unlike Thea in The Other Sister, the voices and diction of the young characters, such as Marcus in “Cheese Guru Kiss”, are believable.

Some questions I hope to ask Deckha next week:

Do the characters, themes, etc. of the stories come from people you have met in real life?

Is there a clear message you want to convey with your stories about South Asian people and/or culture?

Do you think that "shopping for sabzi" is a detrimental way of looking for a mate or for love?


Below I am also including the discussion I started on the Listserv on this text:

I am currently finishing up Shopping for Sabzi by Nitin Deckha and was wondering if anyone else noticed the similarities between it and other books in the course, such as Natasha and Other Stories, The Chinese Knot, and Barnacle Love. The stories in these books focus on a specific group, whether it be a racial/cultural group or a family, and are separate yet interconnected. I have found these books to be the most enjoyable to read throughout the course because they have often been the most easy to relate to (common themes I've noticed are: relationships, sex, family, love, friends - all issues that interest people of our age group), are contemporary and are written with humor and wit.

I was just wondering if anyone else saw these similarities, agreed/disagreed, could share which of these books they liked the most and why, or if anyone has noticed any other similarities between the books in the course? This last question in particular could perhaps be helpful for all of us in studying for the exam.

"Late Nights on Air" by Elizabeth Hay

The funny thing about reading Elizabeth Hay's Late Nights on Air is that it was my idea of the traditional Canadian novel before I started this course. Although every character has something interesting about them that makes them different and makes the radio station a mixture of unique personalities, they are all Caucasian Canadian. I had gotten so used to books that told the stories that hadn't been told before, the stories that were about the traditional 'other' Canadian, that reading this book was unfortunately very hard for me to get into. I started to approach it differently, however, after Gail presented the video of The Sweater. It reminded me that although they are more traditional, these stories of Canadian life must also be told through our art and literature. Although this country is now more multicultural than ever, these long-established Canadian ideals are also important and are now a part of the distinctive blend of stories that this country has to present.

I suppose I was discriminating it against it for its lack of including other cultures in its main characters, but I was missing the unique brand of Northern Canadian culture that it did present. This was an idea that I was more open to after Hay's visit as well. Her soft-spoken manner drew me into the narrative as she was reading and I began to reconsider my initial impression. Just like the voice of Dido drew Harry into the radio station, Hay's discussion drew me into the book whose themes and setting I was not accustomed to reading about. She talked about her own stay in Yellowknife and how the town itself inspired her and plays a central role in the narrative. This is similar to other books in the course, such as Barnacle Love, The Chinese Knot and Natasha, in which Toronto plays a central figure that all the plot lines intertwine around. I learned that the beauty of Hay's novel lies in its exposure of a city that is not as prevalent in Canadian culture, Yellowknife, a medium that is almost forgotten, radio, characters that are atypical, and her unconventional focus on a group of characters rather than a clear protagonist. I'm glad that I now see what is so special about Hay's highly acclaimed work, so I can maybe give it another chance before the exam. As is often true of first impressions, mine were misleading and did not allow me to appreciate the beauty of Late Nights on Air.

"In the Place of Last Things" by Michael Helm

One of the aspects of Helm's novel that most drew me in was how it reminded me of another famous road novel, On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I have always had the dream of, like the characters in both books, taking an extensive road trip throughout North America and discovering things about myself along the way. My ideal trip would go from Toronto to Vancouver and then down to California, across the US to New York, to Montreal and then back to Toronto.

This led me to think about the most important things that I would need to take with me on a road trip: good books, good friends, good music, and a camera. Imagining the music that would make the cut on my own road trip soundtrack was helpful because when I'm reading, I often set the narratives of books to music, and it helped me identify with In the Place of Last Things.

Road music:

1. Phoenix - Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2. Tegan and Sara - Sainthood
3. Gossip - Music for Men
4. Coldplay - A Rush of Blood to the Head, Parachutes, Viva la Vida
5. M.I.A. - Kala
6. Vampire Weekend - Contra and Vampire Weekend
7. Jay-Z - The Blueprint III and The Black Album
8. Santigold - Santogold
9. No Doubt - The Singles Collection
10. The Smiths - The Very Best of the Smiths
11. Regina Spektor - Far
12. Lykke Li - Youth Novels
13. Wilco - Wilco (The Album)
14. The Strokes - Is This It? and Room On Fire
15. Metric - Old World Underground, Where Are You Now, Live It Out, Grow Up and Blow Away, Fantasies
16. Passion Pit - Manners
17. Madonna - The Immaculate Collection, Celebration
18. MGMT - Oracular Spectacular
19. The Eagles – Greatest Hits
20. The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing
21. Notorious BIG - Ready to Die
22. The Smashing Pumpkins - Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness
23. Michael Jackson - The Essential Michael Jackson
24. Tokyo Police Club - A Lesson In Crime
25. Blink-182 - Greatest Hits
26. Fleetwood Mac - Rumors
27. The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible and Funeral
28. Death Cab for Cutie - Narrow Stairs, Plans, and Transatlanticism
29. Broken Social Scene - You Forgot It In People
30. Coconut Records – Microphone and Young Baby
etc.

Maybe I should look into investing in an iPod adapter before I embark on this trip...

"The Book of Negroes" by Lawrence Hill

Last night was Lawrence Hill's reading of his masterpiece, The Book of Negroes. He was soft-spoken, surprisingly humorous in person, and generous enough to answer many of our pressing questions and sign our copies of his book.

I was truly moved and inspired by Hill's book and am most likely going to write about it for my Letter Assignment. So I've decided to use this journal entry as a space for me to brainstorm on the many things I want to write about. Right now, there is so much that I want to mention about the 470-page novel, that I feel that I have to get down my ideas as soon as I can.

I am thinking that I would like to focus on Aminata and the forces that push her to survive. I am very interested in the relationship she has with her parents and how their voices are constantly with her, even when she is nearing death and getting ready to face the London courts:

"I could feel my pulse pounding in my throat, and tried to calm myself by thinking of my father and how - even when making tea or jewelery - his hands moved with confidence. I imagined his voice, deep and musical, reaching out across the ocean to soothe me now: Just be who you are, and speak of the life you have lived. (458)

I am also interested in her relationship with her husband, Chekura. I was deeply moved by how only death could stop him from finding her every time they were apart. Not only did The Book of Negroes teach me things I did not know about Black history and Canada's role in slavery, but also about love and how it can cross oceans and bring people together again.

The hardest parts in the novel for me to read were when Aminata loses both her children. Aminata experiences some of the most horrific events I could ever imagine. As a child, losing parents would be the most difficult thing to face, and as a woman, she must endure losing her children and her husband. Reading those passages always made me feel a pang of regret for the pain that she encounters, but I also learned that these experiences were what made her a stronger woman, encouraged to keep reading, learning, teaching others, and pushed her to continue fighting for her freedom.

I look forward to developing these ideas into my letter to the wonderful Lawrence Hill.

"Ragged Company" by Richard Wagamese

In lecture, we discussed the question that Richard Wagamese's book asks: Does money have the ability to change someone's quality of life? Previous to reading this book, I had often toyed with that same idea on my own. Whenever things don't go exactly as planned, those of us who have financial limitations often think, 'If only I had more money, everything would be different.' But Wagamese's book questions the truth in those thoughts. The characters in Ragged Company win money through the lottery, but are still unable to let go of their previous experiences, struggles and burdens. This reminded me of an episode of Oprah that I once saw about a homeless person who was give $100,000 by a documentary filmmaker. The director put the money in a briefcase in a dumpster where the homeless man was sure to find it, as he made his living at the time by collecting cans. The homeless man was unaware that the money was to be part of the movie he was being filmed for; the director had told him that he was just following him to discover what it was like to be homeless. The man had no idea that he was part of a social experiment to see if money really can change someone's life for the better. Out of no where, family members and old friends who had once abandoned the man and forgotten of his existence wanted a new relationship with him. The man bought these people lavish gifts such as cars and even bought himself a $32,000 truck. Not only did he not know how to handle having so much money, but he could not grow accustomed to living under a roof. Once he had acquired an apartment, he couldn't sleep on a bed, but slept on the floor. Eventually, he was so unwise with his money, despite the financial advisers and therapists available to him free of charge through the director, that he ended up homeless and alone once again. This story demonstrates that money cannot solve all of one's problems. (The link to the story is here http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/95216/a_homeless_man_blows_100000_of_free.html?cat=9)

Although the characters in Ragged Company do not grow fully accustom to having more opportunities either, they eventually learn how to use their talents and skills as trades and give back to the Mission. But the success of the characters is due to something they had that the homeless man in the other story did not - each other. They were a family before they received their windfall and were there for each other despite their social circumstances. They may have been lacking a physical place to live, but they had built a home with their friendship. The company's relationships with each other and with Granite allow them to move past their former lives and use their fortune to reinvent their lives. Regardless of their monetary wealth, as long as they maintained their home with each other, they would continue to be rich in love and companionship.

"Airstream Land Yacht" by Ken Babstock

To be honest, I was having a rather difficult time reading this book before lecture last week and Babstock's reading a couple of days ago. I had never before encountered poetry like this and was struggling to understand meaning through it. I am accustomed to trying to relate poetry and writing to my own life, but I just could not find emotional connections in Babstock's words.

I was relieved to discover in lecture, however, that Leslie agreed that it is often difficult to understand what Babstock's theme or intention is with his poetry. She mentioned, for example, that the poem "Airstream Land Yacht" is actually more focused in sounds and metaphors, rather than relaying an actual message or emotion. Even she found it hard to distinguish what his main point is. It seems as though Babstock's poetry acts as a twisted map through the convoluted thoughts of the poet's mind.

However, Leslie also mentioned that "Stencil Artist" is a more approachable poem with a more traditional theme of love and relationships. As these are themes that I am more accustomed to and interested in reading about, I decided to give the poem another try. I found his narrative about a relationship with a graffiti artist easier to understand after Leslie gave us more background information and eventually discovered the beauty in the poem. I delighted in the imagery of "rail bridges, back lanes, blue dust of building/sites - with the NSCAD dropout (b.68, Khanesetake)/who worked at night with stencils and spray/paint, enlivening the poured forms of capitol/with red and black silhouettes of ordinary people" (23) that could be describing rebellion in almost any Canadian city. And once Babstock references his relationship with the artist he has been describing and discusses how she removed him from her life, I could appreciate how he compares the way she approaches her art work with the way she treated their relationship: "Steady brown knife,/she cut me-expertly-out of her life; the life/I see now I'd been filling in" (23). It is a beautiful comparison that allowed me to finally appreciate the emotion Babstock was putting into his work, even though I didn't see it immediately.

I have learned from reading this book that although I may struggle with it, I shouldn't give up on poetry because it may take a few reads to find lasting beauty and meaning within the words.

"Natasha and Other Stories" by David Bezmozgis

The latest book that we had to read for class is Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmozgis. It seems as though I have gotten my wish and we are reading another collection of short stories from a Canadian author. It is also another book in the course that focuses on the story of the Canadian immigrant. Similar to Barnacle Love, it focuses on one family, but it is different because only one character narrates the connected stories in Natasha. In lecture, Gail mentioned that the book is actually autobiographical fiction and that a lot of it is based on Bezmozgis' upbringing, but that he is more interested in writing the fiction aspects. I was interested in the idea that, like all of the other writers we have read to this point, Bezmozgis uses what he knows to communicate slightly altered stories about his life to his reader. But unlike the others, he is more open to admitting how much and which parts of the stories are inspired by his own life. For example, I was surprised to learn from Gail that Bezmozgis has admitted that the story "Natasha" is taken almost directly from his life, except for the fact that he does not have an uncle, because it is so personal and graphic. For most people, telling a story about an intimate relationship they had with a family member in their youth would be a taboo subject. This revelation has encouraged me to think of my own life as a series of short stories. Writing does not have to be about doing incredible amounts of research and telling a story about a stranger, but can be inspired by my own life, told with a twist.

I also was interested in the story "Roman Berman, Massage Therapist". Reading about Mark's father Roman and his struggle to transfer the skills he had acquired in his home country of Latvia, which is a obstacle that many immigrants face when they come to Canada. My own mother, a trained secretary, had to find work in a factory because of her limited knowledge of English and her inability to use a computer. Unlike my own parents, however, Roman does succeed in starting his own Massage Therapy clinic, despite the initial challenges he faces. He works hard to pass the required exams and uses his connection to his community to benefit his business. This also reminded me of my father and how he has had to take English classes and other courses to attain a second career after the factory he worked in closed and moved to Mexico. Like Roman, he was determined to do well in his classes and applied an optimistic hope to an otherwise unfortunate situation. I felt that this story, out of all of them, truly commented on the persevering spirit of many Canadian immigrants. Although my parents did not have the same opportunities to develop their English or other skills to go as far as to have their own business, they have worked hard to raise my sister and I with the idea that anything is possible in this country, as long as we work hard, are determined, and never lose hope.

The picture I am including below is one that "Roman Berman, Massage Therapist" reminded me of. It is of my sister, my father, and I about two years after we came to Canada, in our first apartment in Kitchener. Like the story of "Rose" in the Chinese Knot, this picture reminds me of the great relationship I have with my parents and the promising life that they worked so hard to give my sister and I.


I'm starting to think that writing about the collections of short stories focused on immigrant Canadians might be a good idea for my Critical Commentary at the end of the year...

"The Chinese Knot and Other Stories" by Lien Chao

I really enjoyed reading Lien Chao's The Chinese Knot. During her reading yesterday, she mentioned that she focused on immigration and emigration because it demonstrates an exciting process of change and struggle or a loss and gain. This reminded me of De Sa's stories in Barnacle Love and the similar ideas that I am focusing on in my first Letter Assignment. Just as his stories revolved around a family's adjustment to living a new life in Canada from the perspective of two males at different points in their lives, The Chinese Knot tells a similar story but through the eyes of very different single female narrators. This is again an interesting theme to me because I am also a female immigrant living in Canada. Although I have lived here for the majority of my life, I am still an amalgamation of both cultures and my parents' decision to immigrate here was both a loss and a gain, as Chao discussed.

Two of my favourite stories in The Chinese Knot were "Under the Monkey Bars" and Rose.

In "Under the Monkey Bars," Wei Ming is an elderly woman who confronts racism. This story reminded me of Julia in The Other Sister, who is also opinionated, outspoken, and independent, despite what people may expect from her because of her age.

After reading "Rose," I felt a deep sadness. I was bewildered by the story and how a daughter could be able to reject her own mother. Although my mother and I do not always agree on certain issues, I have a close relationship with her, love her, and know that I can always rely on her. I know that the situation told in the short story was different from my own upbringing and that I am not a product of divorce and have never spent time away from my mother, but I cannot imagine not wanting to have a relationship with her. Chao writes with such honesty and frailty that I really felt sympathetic towards the character of Rose. I just imagined how my mom would feel if I did not want to talk to her on a daily basis like I do now and my heart sank. Reading "Rose" made me further appreciate the relationship I have with my mom and made me want to make sure she knows how much I am grateful for her role and constant presence in my life. Although I felt most emotional when I read "Rose", all of Chao's characters are easy to identify with and are recognizable, which must be because they were inspired by real women that the author encountered in her own life. I was able to easily feel sympathy or happiness for her female protagonists, depending on the tone of the story.

Another character that was familiar to me was the city of Toronto. Chao mentioned that it acted not only as a setting, but as another character in her stories. Its streets, parks, and neighbourhoods all shaped and framed her connected narratives. This made her work identifiably Canadian and helped me to relate to the stories, as many of the landmarks she mentioned were familiar to me.

So far this course has already changed my perception of Canadian literature. I previously thought that it was mostly written by Caucasian Canadians and did not tell the stories of the many immigrants that make this multicultural country so diverse. But by reading De Sa and Chao, I know that I have much more to learn about what Canadian literature can be. The rest of the books in the course look to be just as diverse and I know that I will be just as interested in learning about their stories. I also have gained a new opinion of short stories. Previous to this course, I had never been very interested in reading collections of short stories. But after reading Barnacle Love and The Chinese Knot, the format is actually one of my new favourites. It allows for episodic takes on the characters' lives, while still allowing the reader to be emotionally invested in the material. Although I originally read Barnacle Love as a novel, reading it as a collection instead, allowed me to let go of the parts I missed (such as Manuel and Georgina's first years in Canada) and concentrate on why the episodes that De Sa did choose to write about were so important to the narrative and the development of the characters. This is different to Chao, who writes about many different characters. For her book, choosing to write short stories, allowed her to examine the lives of many female characters, without having to intertwine their stories, as she would have been forced to had she written a novel. I look forward to reading the other collections of short stories in the course, and Natasha and Other Stories and Shopping for Sabzi.

"The Other Sister" by Lola Lemire Tostevin

"You don't have to write what you know, just something you feel deeply"


Tonight was Lola Lemire Tostevin's reading of her beautiful novel, The Other Sister. I thought I would take the time to not only reflect on the book, but also reflect on the many ideas that she presented about her book and writing in her soft-spoken manner.

In reference to the quote above, Tostevin discussed the part in her novel about Dr. Mengele and his experiments on Jewish twins during WW2. Although it was not a topic that she has personal experience with, she said she used her imagination and research to be able to write about it. She used her personal connection (her grandchildren are Jewish) to drive her emotion and need to tell this particularly aspect of her story. I also find that writing about something that I care about or feel a deep emotional connection to, makes it easier to communicate.

(On a related note, someone on our listserv discussion named jsweete1 actually found a feature on the Discovery channel about Dr. Mengele that I also thought was interesting. Here is the link: http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/explorer/4087/Overview?source=link_tw_02#tab-Overview)

She also said that she has used writing throughout her life to be able to cope with her problems. Similarly, I have kept a spiral bound book of random ideas since I was in grade one or two. Although I am not used to writing extensive entries, writing even short sequences of words has always been an outlet for my thoughts and feelings. I am looking forward to continuing in this course to discover more about other writers' thoughts on writing and how their perspectives can influence how I observe my own writing. To that effect, writing this blog has made me feel a connection to the character of Julia and how she writes her own thoughts, ideas, and memories on her laptop computer. This is one of the aspects that I liked about her book. The fact that I could find qualities in Julia, an aging woman, that I could relate to said something about the quality of Tostevin's writing. Tostevin herself shared in class that she started writing during her time at the convent. Like her, I often write and reflect best when I am alone and in quiet.

I look forward to growing accustom to writing habitually through this blog and perhaps learning more about my relationship to writing and to Canadian literature in the process.

"Thirty-Seven Small Songs and Thirteen Silences" by Jan Zwicky

Unfortunately I still have not been able to buy Jan Zwicky's collection of poetry Thirty-Seven Small Songs and Thirteen Silences because it is not available at the book store and I am unable to order it from the website they told us about in class. It is too bad because I was really looking forward to reading her book, as her reading in class was so interesting and original. Her views on poetry, art, beauty, music, and philosophy were really inspiring. I have, however, been able to read some excerpts from her poems online. Chris Cornish, our TA, actually featured the following in his contribution to YFile:

What are you thinking, little violin?
What do your clear strings dream?
Brown rivers have gold depths. The sprightly
softness in the current of the bow.

What are you singing, my little violin?
Who are you calling now? Truths
the trees, my parents, taught me.
The sky above your childhood home.

from “Small Song”
by Jan Zwicky

Simply from reading that small excerpt I know that I would really enjoy her poetry, as it is fluid and full of compelling imagery. In just two short stanzas, her diction transports me to another dreamy, softly lit world that makes me look forward to spring...even though it is only October and we still have a full winter ahead. Sigh. Hopefully I will be able to purchase Jan Zwicky's book before the year is up, but for now I will just have to settle for what I can find online. One of those finds is the YouTube link I am adding below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRLfvxqnlhg

Although I do not completely understand the ideas she is presenting in this talk, I can certainly understand that Zwicky has a very interesting take on poetry and philosophy and is contributing many new ideas to Canada's art and poetry scene.

"Barnacle Love" by Anthony De Sa

The first two books that we have been assigned to read are Barnacle Love by Anthony de Sa and Thirty Seven Small Songs and Thirteen Silences by Jan Zwicky. I am about two-thirds into Barnacle Love and I am really absorbed in the narrative of Manuel and his son Antonio. I started reading it first over the book of poetry by Zwicky because I haven't even been able to purchase her book yet. I do not know why it is not available at the bookstore, but every time I check they tell me to come back another time. Hopefully the professors let us know how we can get our hands on the book in our class tomorrow night.

So far, I am really enjoying reading De Sa's story about a family's immigrant experience in Canada. The story of Manuel and his journey from the Azores islands of Portugal to Canada and the experiences he has along the way is really poignant for me because of my own family's experience with immigration.

My parents, sister and I moved to Canada when I was one year old. It was 1991 and El Salvador had been destroyed in the 1980s by a violent civil war. My mother's sister (Tia to me) had already established a life in my home town of Kitchener so that made it so much easier to make the decision to leave El Salvador and move to Canada in search of a better life. Since I was only a baby at the time, I of course do not remember this important time that changed my future forever. However, I almost feel like I do have my own vivid memories, just from years of listening to my parent's stories and memories. Reading the first half of the book where Manuel is the protagonist reminded me of the struggles that my parents also experienced in moving halfway across the world. They too had to leave their families and everything they had grown accustomed to. But their story is different to Manuel's because their reasons for moving were not selfish. As my sister and I were still young children, we still had the chance to live safer, more prosperous lives. And so they moved for us. Reading De Sa's beautiful book has reminded me how much my parents sacrificed for our futures and has inspired me to keep trying to make them proud and take advantage of every opportunity I am given.

Thank you Anthony de Sa for writing such a stirring novel.

Below I have included a poem that I once wrote on my thoughts of immigration in the style of Sylvia Plath's "Daddy" that I think relates with the themes of immigration in De Sa's novel and how the dreams it promises are not always fulfilled.

Sueños frustrados

I am not you, I am not you
Ya no, soy tu
Locked in your chains and handcuffs,
At home and when you came here,
Doing what was expected of you.

Freedom, I chase after you.
I run across borderlines
With one suitcase packed full of Hope
Expecting to find something else
From what I am used to.

Didn’t fly over ocean Atlantic
To land somewhere completely new,
But your feet are on foreign land and you’re a Spic
Fumbling over rosary beads, you
Pray to

Build una vida en este pais
Despite your idioma.
Your tongue, tongue, tongue
That doesn’t move the way you want it
To, does it?

The sun never shines as bright here,
Everything is duller, less clear.
In this place, you chase
What you envisioned before you
Actually arrived here.

It died in an explosion.
Tick, tick, tick, tick
The dream was too weak
To outlive majority views
And everything brand new.

Start running, start running
From what they expect of you
You’re not like them, you’re not who they are.
I may look a lot like you
Pero yo no soy tu.

The wind blows differently here than in El Salvador,
But this place is where I grew.
And despite my reluctance to accept it
I have grown to fit I have grown to fit
My shiny new white costume.
Maybe I am the one who
Has climbed too far up to see my roots
And the dirt they’re planted in.
We climbed into a plane that flew
Too high and far before I knew

My identity, my role.
Slowly, slowly I’ve learned the rules,
But as I learn them I want to break them.
I won’t follow, I won’t
Every example set by you.

It’s hard to tell what’s less natural:
To try to create someone new
Or act like a breathing stereotype
Of what’s expected of someone like me.
Brown immigrant girl who

Has been misplaced early in life,
Placed among strangers, people who
Have blank faces and forced smiles
That are fake, fake, fake, to you.
I am deceived like a fool.

And I am still lost in a maze
But no longer is everything new.
I have learned to see right through
Those who see not what is true,
But only a wetback leech in brown

They see colour and I see right through
Past skin, into, into
To their black black hearts, so untrue.
Inside, human feeling is askew.
The further you go into

These bodies their hatred seeps through.
Pero no dejes que el odio
Infecte your own sangre
Cause once it’s there it’s hard to forget.
Recuerde tu primer sueno.

Although you may run from who you are
And nowhere feels like it’s home to you
Laugh at fortune’s travel agency
And smile at where you live now
At least por ahora, it’s where you belong.

First Journal Entry

Welcome!

Yesterday was our first class in Canadian Writers in Person. As one of our assignments, I have to keep this journal as a place for ideas, reflections, questions, lists, terms, creative writing, visual art or insights – pretty much anything that allows me to reflect on the texts in the course. I decided to use the blog format instead of a traditional journal because it is more efficient for me to type to record my thoughts and feelings. This, I hope, will result in a more interesting and thorough log of my thoughts and feelings.

I am really looking forward to this course, meeting the scheduled writers and learning what Canadian literature means to me.