Ambiguous Patriot
Venya S.
-
A plastic bag holding a newly purchased journal often also contains a pack of sparkly gel pens or pastel highlighters for creating orderly to-do lists or tracking new year's resolutions. My little turquoise notebook certainly didn’t come in a bag like this, and it isn’t decorated with star shaped bullet points or to-do lists, especially its last fifty pages. Instead, interlacing words and crossed-out sentences scatter across the pages. Sometimes the chaos settles into something I can take into the realms of document. This notebook is one of many, each belonging to a different phase of my growth as a writer and as a person.
I received my first notebook in third grade: a purple paperback, now practically a time capsule. When its thin spine lacked creases and rips –when I was a confused eleven year old discovering my love for writing– I wrote stories about girls with long blonde hair and blue eyes. The titles were always “Pretty Girl” or “Princess”. The protagonists of my silly fairytale stories were named “Jackie” or “Sarah,” anything far from my own name.
Brown faux leather lined the next notebook I confided in: an old birthday present, marking the awkward phase of pimples and gym dances. At first, middle school was a place where I finally could start writing about my real self, rather than about characters I wished I was.
But then came seventh grade orientation, where I met the popular girl of my grade. She and I became the typical duo, the short popular girl and her tall weird friend. She drilled into my head, “You won’t get anywhere writing, plus poetry is corny.” Meanwhile, my teachers subtly agreed; my P.E teacher gave me the good old “heart-to-heart” of “Why don’t you try sports instead?” and my math teacher threw in the “follow your inclination in math!”
So I listened; I tried playing basketball and chose the advanced math classes. But most of all, I changed the main characters of my secret stories. Jackie became Jaqueline and she was a basketball captain, overdeveloped for her age – a perfect target for the pre-pubescent boys in her class.
Soon after came the unprecedented end of eighth grade due to COVID-19, which brought a period of blank pages – no notebook, no writing at all. Maybe I needed a chance to distance myself from all the Jackie’s and Jaqueline’s, to rewrite my characters… and myself.
Finally, I reached the stage of my turquoise hardcover notebook. We made it out of the woods! My usual messy clump of words broke up into more purposeful clusters. My handwriting here became different: more slender, mature, and calm. And as soon as I took my writing beyond the pages of a notebook, it immediately wove itself into every part of my life.
I devoted the rest of my time in school to exploring the positive ways I could implement writing to tell my story. I quit wasting ink on characters I’d never known and my protagonists finally began to resemble me. Today, I still write in my beat up turquoise journal, currently on page 110. The main inhabitants of my pages are poems, varying from silly sonnets about my favorite food to free-verse inspired by deep fears. The three poems I've chosen to submit all come from these messy pages, each holding a significant but different value in my journey as a writer.
The first, "Ambiguous Patriot," is one of my most cherished free-verse poems about my and my mother's experience as immigrants in America. The message of the poem is that compromise is constantly necessary as an immigrant in America; you cannot try to conform to standards or you will be criticized, but you are hated and discriminated against if you are visibly different. In our home, there is a strange triangular wall that my mother decided to paint green –a very random yet almost rebellious decision. This wall was the inspiration for my poem, as it reminded me of the small efforts my family makes to preserve our identities as immigrants.
The second poem is titled "Shadow Puppets," and it has a very simple theme: hands. As a writer, it is important to understand that your hands are your biggest tool. This poem is about appreciating each mark in your hands, as they tell your story and help you write about your stories –your fears, your pain, your happiness.
The final poem, "Sutured," holds large holds a special spot in my life because it is the first poem I ever wrote. It is, of course, very different from its first draft back in 2017 when I was just learning the rules of poetry and using cliché similes as crutches. This poem is written from the perspective of a teddy bear, a comfort object of mine.
Whether it is about an innocent childhood memory or a difficult experience, poetry is my creative outlet and my safety blanket. Regardless the form, size, or obscurity of the poem, each one ultimately has the same origin: my thin-spined purple notebook, a gift I am eternally grateful for.
-
I have always admired the ways in which language has the ability to create beautiful images only through words. Poetry, specifically, has taught me how to create art with thoughts and feelings I have struggled to express or even speak of for years of my life, helping me to finally understand myself.
