Good afternoon class,

Here we are at the end of the term, submitting our final blog posts of the semester and it’s a pretty exciting moment to say we’ve already come this far. I’m feeling quite fortunate to be the class blogger on this beautiful Sunday because it’s as if I get an even deeper insight into the Obasan archives through the lens of my fellow classmates. I’m hearing about pieces from the archives that I didn’t even get to view in our seemingly short time there, so that’s pretty cool. Generally, it felt as though the class mainly focused on similar topics of fan mail connections and draft edits, but I was intrigued by a few opinions and pieces from a couple particular bloggers where I found relation and fascination.

One original blog topic that caught my attention was in Joey’s blog where he discussed the feeling that he noticed while he was flipping through material at least 20 years older then himself. Joey related the experience to what he imagines a time machine to be like and that sparked a compelling thought process for myself. I can relate closely with Joey here because I achieve a similar feeling anytime I look through something that contains history. It’s a strange feeling that comes over me, thoughts of place, time and where the world was at rush through my head. I know these thoughts can’t be fully comprehended and perhaps that’s why I enjoy them so much

An artifact that sounded very personal and revealed a lot about the true impact Obasan had on Japanese communities in Canada came out of Mariana’s post where she summarizes a heartfelt fan letter. To briefly summarize the letter again, a Japanese women named Ibuki writes to Joy thanking her for revealing her story because she had endured similar experiences throughout the internment in the United States. Ibuki describes Obasan as “awakening”, giving her more comfort in speaking of the experiences because Joy had paved the way in a sense, making such a discussion possible. Mariana goes on in her post to propose an interesting interpretation of silence that we spoke about briefly in class. Mariana speaks about how silence can be a standard convention of displaying emotion in situations where certain issues can’t be explained through words and are better off not being discussed. This interpretation of silence is an important area of attention throughout Obasan as Naomi is influenced by both her silent grandmother and her outspoken aunt Emily.

Staying on the general topic of fan mail, one of the most intriguing points I found in the blogs this week came from Naima’s blog. Naima brought up a personal imagination that she experienced while reading through some of Joy’s fan mail. Naima noticed that flipping through letters from fans and reading what they were saying first hand made the story of Obasan come to life in a totally different way. This idea stuck with me and led me to realize that books can create a rough image in my head while I read them, but a new and stronger sense of authority comes from a personal, heartfelt letter from a reader and that somehow makes the whole story more vivid. This idea inspired by Naima is one that I while continue to consider in my future readings.

My favourite blog of the week was Lauren’s when she spoke of the visit to the archives as a brief insight into Joy Kogawa’s creative process. Lauren found a particular piece in a folder that appeared to be a quickly scribbled poem on a random article about opiate drugs. When considering that the poem came directly from Joy when she suddenly got hit with inspiration is such a cool concept to me. It’s interesting because I find myself in similar situations when I attempt to write, some ideas run through my head and then I form key words or full sentences that need to be written down no matter where I am or what I have at my disposal. For example, even as I write this blog I jot down random words or phrases all over my notebook so they can be installed in my post at the right point. To think about such a simple procedure being a process   for an established poet and writer is a neat thing to internalize.

Thanks for reading and enjoy the last week of classes!

A.J.