【迷彩文学01】- 英语随笔 : 【Pen of many colors】-Hear the voices in the dreams?

Hear the voices in the dreams?

• A close reading & diggins on internet “of Itsuka” by Joy Kogowa

• Canadian Multiculturalism in Literature

by: - 一语湖边 : Sunday, February 17, 2008 Notes: 【迷彩文学01】

 -“ To be without history is to be unlived crystal, unused flesh; is to live the life of the unborn”

 "没有历史，就好比没有生命的晶体，会移动的肉体，或就如活着而压根没有出生"

Page: 82-83

“Dreams, dreams, dreams.

It begins in earliest infancy, this journey through the world’s many borderlands.” It proceeds through the day of odorless fawn, past summer, into the mustier season of leaves, orchards, the harvest with its memories and dance. .  To be without history Is to be unlived crystal, unused flesh; is to live the life of the unborn 

What I've weekend to in this new autumn day is hanger. My eyes are hungry. The Palms of my hands are hungry for this square inch of space we are inhabiting today. Our bite-sized moment of life. I'm as small and as hungry as a newborn Sparrow.

'There is a time for crying' they said. ‘But itsuka someday the time for laughter will come’....

 Page: 89

"I can hear the waves from childhood rippling onwards to touch other children who wait for their lives. I can hear the voices, fainted as the faraway sound of a distant, almost in audible wind. It is sound of the underground stream, it speaks through Memory, through dream, through hands, through words, our arms, our trusting. I can hear the sound of the voice that frees, a light, steady, endless breach. I can hear the breath of life."  

 

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So the book of history turned, I see the picture, I hear the voices, as I read…

First, as a reader, I see the beauty of seasons change, in my mind, the freshness in an early morning, through the summer, when ‘into the mustier season of leaves, orchards,’ Here, as through I followed her, come into an “orchards” where leaves turning golden-yellow, and the fruits hung in leaves of the tree; a picture of autumn comes into my mind; I even can smell the smell of the time of a ‘golden’ “harvest” season.

People are happy in such colorful scene of the seasons, but then, it is also the moment remembering something we’ve done or experienced in the past? The stories happened in the earlier seasons? Same sense, in one’s life, the happiness mixes with the memories ‘sweet’ or ‘ bitter’ dance in our mind as people sing for the seasons. That is the drama I read in her few lines at the opening the story.

Then I come across another word “Hungry”, she used three times in next paragraph. Is there any word more powerful than this one? Nothing else can let reader feel more directly and more actually the ‘poor’ and ‘poverty’. I see another picture: a small sparrow keeps her mouth wild, hungered for the feedings, in the last sentence.

People dream what they need. Other than food and drinks, there is another kind of “hunger”, “there is time for crying” but ‘the time for laughter will comes” someday, - Istuka. The days for them to laugh, to sing, to be happy, to be treated as not prisoners when the “dreams” they had back as she remembers in the lines.

The end paragraph is so poetic, I feel the rhymes in her wording, following her poetic wording: I can hear, I can hear, I can hear; so strong, so passionate, like in a poem, the ‘waves’ and the ‘voices’ like the ‘wind’ and the ‘stream’ that ‘in audible’, and ‘under ground’; yet through, a word she used three times to give the stress and emphasizes, the “voices” once only heard in dreams, the voices finally ‘frees’ for the turning the history, turn the suffering to happiness, hungry to full, dark to light, unsecured to steady, and the death to the ‘breath of life”. All these emotionally, vividly, and audibly we read from her words.

Internet References:

http://obasan.org/ 

http://www.histori.ca/asia-canada/page.do?pageID=422 

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_gx5229/is_2003/ai_n19152960 

http://www.chapters.indigo.ca/books/A-Song-of-Lilith-JOY-KOGAWA/9781551923666-(gives detailed Bio of Joy Kogowa,)

http://voices.cla.umn.edu/vg/Critique/review_poetry/a_song_of_lilith_by_joy_kogawa.htm (A Poem, by Joy Kogowa,)

http://www.asian.ca/books/booklist.htm (Japanese Writers)

item. html?ref=Search+Books%3a+%2527Joy+Kogawa%2527

(Lists her books available now,)

 462 words To be continued 

( Adv. Canadian Literature )

约翰雷K. Shaw Burlington, Ca. 

lakeshore_viewer_2008@yahoo.cn (China)
john.canjourno.2008@gmail.com ( International

2008 年，初春 二月
Someone knows about this index? What does this mean as to the writing?
will be happy to be advised, thanks in advance.

You can reach him at: