I'm interested in the kind of speech which
feels the burden of telling.
There's a kind of speech that doesn't
have that kind of burden to it.
But there is a kind of speech.
I think that feels the burden of something
that needs to be told.
And that in my own writing at this point
is what I'm interested in.
I think that it's important to me because of my background,
which isn't all that unusual.
As a matter of fact, in this day and age
I think it's pretty usual, pretty common.
My background involves being born in another country,
fleeing that country.
My father was a political prisoner and as a result
I have certain memories and stories that were--
I feel burdened by them and in writing them
it's a kind of unburdening.
Of course I feel the pressure of memory, the need
to remember those stories.
So I'm going to read a couple of poems in which memory
is very important.
I don't think we always want to remember
or are able to remember.
I think we don't remember maybe because
of pain or indifference.
But this poem is called "The Interrogation."
There are scenes in this poem, which
I remember from childhood that I can't make
a lot of sense out of but--
some of them are horrific some of them are not.
The poem is in two voices.
I'll pause in between the voices.
One voice is animated by the imperative to remember.
And the other voice is not.
It's called "The Interrogation."
I'll just say this, when we were in Indonesia a lot of Chinese
were being slaughtered.
And I remember turning on the water
and the water would not work.
And we found out that the reservoirs were just
piled up with bodies.
That shows up here.
It's called, "The Interrogation."
"Two streams: one dry, one poured all night by our beds.
I'll wonder about neither.
The dry one was clogged with bodies.
I'm through with memory.
At which window of what house did light teach you tedium?
On which step of whose stairway did you learn indecision.
I'm through sorting avenues and doors, curating houses
and deaths.
Which house did we flee by night?
Which house did we flee by day?
Don't ask me.
We stood and watched one burn; from one we ran away.
I'm neatly folding the nights and days,
notes to be forgotten.
We were diminished.
We were not spared.
There was no pity.
Neither was there sanctuary.
Neither rest.
There were fires in the streets.
We stood among men, at the level of their hands, all
those wrists, dead or soon to die.
No more letting my survival depend on memory.
There was the sea; its green volume brought despair.
There was waiting.
There was leaving.
There was astonishment, too, the astonishment of,
"I thought you died."
"How did you get out?"
"And Little Fei Fei walked right by the guards!"
I grow leaden with stories.
My son's eyelids grow heavy.
Who rowed the boat when your father tired?
Don't ask me.
Who came along?
Who got left behind?
Ask the sea.
Through it all there was no song,
and weeping came many years later.
I'm through with memory.
Sometimes a song even when there was weeping.
I'm through with memory.
Can't you still smell the smoke on my body?"