Recently, I was browsing YouTube and stumbled upon an interview with Aimee Nezhukumatathil and Jennifer Chang (Khaled Muttawa was suppose to join, but was in Libya at the time as it had just been liberated). I have already read and written about Muttawa and Nezhukumatathil, but Chang was a new world.
Upon reading Chang's book the similarities between the three poets became distinguishable.
- Nezhukumatathil focuses on family in the second half of her book Lucky Fish, Chang focuses on family and poverty in the second half of her book The History of Anonymity.
- Muttawa struggles with identity issues and migration in his first novel Zodiac of Echoes, Nezhukumatathil also struggles with her concept of home and womanhood in Lucky Fish.
- Muttawa and Chang both exploit similar syntax and line breaks.
- All three explore themes of belonging, rootedness, and language.
In the interview I watched on YouTube Nezhukumatathil elaborates upon the idea of silence in poetry as a reflection of meaning similar to that of the written word. Line breaks, words spliced in a poem, or isolated in one line, or simply the fadding off of an image are some examples of how silence can be exploited to reflect meaning.
Below I delve further into Chang's poetry and silence.