This week after finishing our discussion on Obasan, we visited the rare books library at Irving to look at the Joy Kogawa Fonds. The fonds consist of material written by, about, or to Joy Kogawa and the librarian informed us that all documents were kept in the order Joy Kogawa sent them. There were drafts of Obasan and other books written by Kogawa, letters from publishers and students, newspaper clippings, and other unpublished writings. Most of the material I looked through wasn’t focused on Obasan. It was nice to see Kogawa and her writing from different perspectives other than Obasan.
I looked through a different box and found a file full of miscellaneous poems Joy Kogawa had written. It was really interesting going through everything in the file I ended up looking at it for most of the time period. I enjoyed reading something that was more casual; nothing was really organized or formatted. Some of the poems were written out on a typewriter, but others were hand written on stationary or scribbled on the back of scrap paper. I felt as though I got to see a different side of Kogawa through her writing. In class we’ve only focused on Kogawa through Obasan and her experiences during WWII, which were the only things I related her with. After reading her other poems, I was reminded that there is more to Joy Kogawa than her and her family’s experience of internment in Canada. It was obviously a huge, significant aspect of her life, but not the only one.
On a different note, I want to share one of her poems I read that really stood out to me. It reminded me of Naomi and the silence she carries throughout Obasan.
“I face the wind
To shelter the flame
And never see the light.
A protected child
Is one
Who stands alone.”
As I am going through all the posts from our class for the class blog, your post on poems really stood out to me. First and foremost, I had no idea that there were poems in the fonds at all, but what was most shocking to me was the poem and the connection you made to Naomi and silence in the book. Of course, poems are interpreted differently by each individual, but I really saw this poem as connecting to Naomi’s mother, which may or may not have been influenced by a real person in Joy Kogawa’s life. The “facing of the wind” to me seemed much like the silence that Naomi’s mother had to shoulder in order to protect her family from knowing the gruesome truth about what had happened to her in Nagasaki. The “never seeing the light” can be referring to the not seeing of her family, especially her children, which are regarded to by many parents as the “light of their lives.” Finally, “A protected child/ Is one/ Who stands alone” is like the strength that Naomi and Stephen gained by being independent of their mother, yet were protected by her all the same from knowing the truth they may not have been able to handle.
Hi Indygo, I’d first like to say that this post was really thought provoking for me. Although, I did not get to see any of the poems, I wish I did. It would’ve been really nice to see something else that Kogawa produced that was not Obasan. Also, you really made me think when you said you ” got to see a different side of Kogawa”, I never really thought about seeing Kogawa in a different way. I really wished I got to see the poem so I could see Kogawa in a different way as well.