Letter 3: What Would it Take?

If you had disabled PMs, we would have never figured it out. Unless I started talking to Will... I wouldn't call that a failure though. It was fun while it lasted and it gave me a very strong sense of pride. Also I was introduced to Megan which is a good thing too. :) (Our everyday readers will have no idea what we're talking about, but that's okay, I've decided--I'm not writing a letter to them now am I?)

Well I know I've told you the story about how I actually met the Notemaker but I think it's something that deserves a re-pondering... so as I was thinking about it, I was wondering who would make the best Notemaker character... I've realized for a while now that the Notemaker's thoughts aren't so different from what makes other cultures more open. The chasms between us as American's are pretty exclusively American. We have to appologize for everything, even bumping into people. And we think, well, it's not that big of a deal, it's not something we should have to appologize for all the time... but when you think about it, anybody bumping into you without appologizing is instantly a jerk, even if you're not bothered by the fact that it happened.

All this to say that the Notemaker should have some sort of international experience. And I thought about a friend of mine who has some international experience, and I thought about his personality and I realized that he's perfect. :)

Finals went well. I'm pretty sure I laid the beatdown on them (not that big of an accomplishment in the sense of traditional finals). I pretty much waited until the last minute for both, and then just... put out good pieces of work. I did a slam poem for my postcolonial literature class that talked about many of the themes of the class, and everybody clapped after I had finished. (They, uh, didn't clap for anyone else >_>). I had planned on posting it separately, but I might as well just post it here, since it's on topic:

What Would it Take?
by Matt Lund

The end of the course
seems to demand
that we ask the tough questions
or the questions at hand
what’s the point?
what do we do?
when our fifteen choices of peanut butter
stare
back
blankly
and ask us again
what do we do?
understanding hunger does not feed the hungry
understanding loss does not console the suffering
and if it did
have I gone to far to suggest that we
understand at all?

Readers might say, with greatest intent,
“I know what they went through”
Please,
you read it in a book
anyone could take a look
at that and come away with your
“understanding”

But fine, let’s see what it is you’ve read
The Inheritance of Loss? Cast Me Out if you Will? The Hamilton Case?
These books scratch the surface of colonial aftermath
“They’re political works,” you will say
and I’ll laugh
Do you think you felt rape in that last paragraph?
Yes, it’s true they’re political
like it or not
but should we deny what aesthetics they’ve brought
to the table? Or is it that all South Asian works are the same
they all deal with poverty, colonialism, or pain?
So the writers adhere to this system, or what?
we have free speech, yes
but when we at last have been put to the test
will we say what we want to if it will not sell?

I’m being facetious
It’s hard not to be when from every angle,
from every sight I see there’s no right way
no wrong way to interpret these things

authenticity
big elephant in the room
how to please both sides closing in like a tomb
while the publisher sees that the market’s gone west
“They’ll eat this book up, without a contest”
and the grandparents feel that they’re being ignored
while the sellouts get rich and the poor
well
the power of language
to create
to destroy
disenfranchisement is part of the ploy
but America’s drunk on the brown millionaire
just jumping to know that they too get a share
never mind that its fiction
it’s enough that we care
but in seconds turn back to our primetime television

is that wrong?
what obligation do we have to do otherwise?
well the documentarians might say we’re
implicated
that their history is ours
and that’s true to some point
when we look at the sky we can see the same stars
so as people, they might say, we have hardly a choice
we must put aside something in support
(that’s not a mandate of course)

But they’re wrong—I don’t owe anything to Nepal
or to India, Bangladesh, Pakistan, or Sri Lanka
and I don’t know the filmmakers,
I don’t know their child
I don’t have breakfast with their families once in a while

Wait, I’m making this sound all wrong
I don’t mean to say that my thanks don’t belong
at least somewhere
But as you can see
I don’t necessarily owe things to the documentary

Look nobody’s outside of power relations
or culture, or pride
what I’m saying is I’m implicated to myself
It’s not that the film has inspired me to help
it’s that when it’s been said through and through
if it touches me and if it touches you
it’s our feelings to which we owe action, if anything
because in those moments of
held back tears
when you see people make a living
by crushing brick…

Well, let’s throw them computers
and hope that will solve
colonialism
I mean, technology can
as they say
open doors
Is that all we’ve learned at the end of this course?
Or course not!

Globalization is just another name
for easy solutions that, in the end,
have great consequences.
Think Partition
That’s all I have to say

What would it take for me to
fill in the blank
What would it take?


Letter 2

Response 2