{"id":64,"date":"2016-04-26T21:36:47","date_gmt":"2016-04-26T21:36:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/?p=64"},"modified":"2016-04-26T21:37:43","modified_gmt":"2016-04-26T21:37:43","slug":"through-my-eyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/2016\/04\/26\/through-my-eyes\/","title":{"rendered":"Through My Eyes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Project Name: <\/em>I-raq<\/p>\n

Medium:\u00a0<\/em>Poem<\/p>\n

Summary: <\/em>This work was inspired by the novel\u00a0Persepolis<\/em>, which\u00a0beautifully portrays the\u00a0consequences of war (namely the loss of innocence, security, and community) and the novel The\u00a0Reluctant Fundamentalist<\/em>,\u00a0the fictional firsthand experience of September 11, 2001, in New York City. Both of these works inspired me to\u00a0reflect\u00a0on the impact of the Iraq War on my life.<\/p>\n

I have admittedly vastly different circumstances than either of the readings –\u00a0the Iraq War wasn’t fought on US soil, and during the attacks on 9\/11 I was living in Phoenix, AZ, far from New York City. I do think there were similarities, though –\u00a0I was a first\u00a0grader and remember that day more so than any other time in elementary school. It’d be big statement to say that I “kissed my childhood goodbye”\u00a0that day as Marji did one day in Persepolis <\/em>(117), but it definitely came with an awareness that some things were happening that were bigger than I was and too much for me to really understand. I wanted to convey this younger perspective, similar to the one employed throughout\u00a0Persepolis<\/em> to explain complex political happenings.<\/p>\n

Growing up in post-9\/11 USA also was an odd atmosphere – it was a\u00a0heady mix of patriotism, optimism, and sheer recklessness at home and abroad (as witnessed in both the invasion of Iraq and the housing bubble). Although my experience does not map precisely onto that of Changez’s in The Reluctant Fundamentalist<\/em>,\u00a0this poem tries to capture the disquieting feeling of seeing “newspaper headlines featuring words such as\u00a0duty<\/em> and\u00a0honor<\/em>” (115)\u00a0that pervaded America for some time afterwards.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

I-raq<\/em><\/p>\n

Christian Heritage Academy,
\ntwo-storied, red, a baseline on Baseline
\noverrun with me and my friends.<\/p>\n

Plaid skirts, small white polos,
\nadding, subtracting, counting
\none Holy Spirit, one Messiah, one God.<\/p>\n

That Tuesday morning, in not-quite fall,
\nwas a normal first-grade morning of cereal,
\na mystery book, a quiet car ride.<\/p>\n

I enter the small room of small people
\nready to learn the new times tables
\nbut Mrs. Thompson is crying.<\/p>\n

Her face turned upwards to the TV
\nas her tears fell down to the rough carpet.
\nSmoke billowed across the pixels.<\/p>\n

From far away, in a concrete jungle,
\nstun-shock-falling-breaking-fear came
\nrippling across the airwaves across the nation.<\/p>\n

My tears fall too, for what I don\u2019t know.
\nWas this a movie trailer? Did adults cry?
\nWhy was the world falling down?<\/p>\n

She told us that hateful people had done
\na hateful thing but I hate tomatoes,
\nand sometimes I throw them too.<\/p>\n

All our parents will come early,
\ntaking us away to the safety of home,
\nfar from bad news and hurt.<\/p>\n

They don\u2019t know that the pain will stay,
\nwill rend this nation\u2019s pride to shreds,
\nwill be used to chase and chase<\/p>\n

until WMD is something fourth-graders know,
\nuntil yellow ribbons drape every intersection,
\nuntil we can\u2019t breathe for our lies and hate.<\/p>\n

Small white polos and plaid skirts will learn
\nto dislike others before they can even spell,
\nx-e-n-o-p-h-o-b-i-a.<\/p>\n

The heady days of war will bear little fruit
\nuntil the days after war, when inertia
\nfails to break\u00a0and violence goes on and on.<\/p>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Project Name: I-raq Medium:\u00a0Poem Summary: This work was inspired by the novel\u00a0Persepolis, which\u00a0beautifully portrays the\u00a0consequences of war (namely the loss of innocence, security, and community) and the novel The\u00a0Reluctant Fundamentalist,\u00a0the fictional firsthand experience of September 11, 2001, in New York City. Both of these works inspired me to\u00a0reflect\u00a0on the impact of the Iraq War on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7943,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7943"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":66,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64\/revisions\/66"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/oceanofink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}