By Virginia Jasmin Pasalo

 

IN writing, I seek more to understand myself better than to enlighten others. There are times when inspiration only comes an hour after the deadline, with just a smell, a memory, a face. Anything could trigger a word. Others approach writing differently. My friend, historian Fe Mangahas told me that she couldn’t start writing with just a word, but a whole sentence.

The first word is a trigger, but often, the finished poem or prose may not even contain it. Somewhere within the course of writing, the mind shifts, and the content originally thought of is no longer there. This happens when you allow the moment to take control, to let the thoughts take over, and the words come freely. Most of the poems I have written came out this way. In this process, one must be true to the inspiration and refuse the urge to edit, just to conform “morally”, or gain acceptance. To be true to the inspiration means being brave. This way, the “muse” stays and will not abandon you.

A poem I submitted to a university in Jordan was accepted except that the editors wanted me to change a verse which, to them, expressed doubt in the presence of God. But this poem is about the lament of a child in Gaza with so much cruelty, where one can legitimately ask the proof of a living God, in much the same way that Christ lamented, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” I refused to delete and the editors chose another poem, about a fruit, “Peeling Persimmons”.

Listening to silence, sipping coffee,
peeling persimmons and you,
a stranger to the dance and the music
in my mind
a drop of rain on my body and soul
turning everything fresh and green,
speaking in the silence
and the spaces between words,
drinking tea, and biting on fresh dates,
maybe.
Maybe.
Because, i don’t really know you
maybe i made you up,
in that warm and humid part of me
where fireflies crawl on blades of grass,
and fly on branches of trees
that dance at midnight,
when the waterfalls caress
the forest
for a brief moment,
i smell the light of distant stars,
and ride on moonbeams to fly beyond,
without eating anything, drinking anything
but the thought of peeling, ripened persimmons.

This poem has nothing to do with the pain and desperation expressed by the child in the poem about Gaza, but it had an element of hope, even “for a brief moment”, and it was acceptable.

Thoughts may not directly reflect personal experience but borrowed from the experiences of others, getting inside their situation, becoming the experience, getting as deep as one could. Every writer has a different way of expressing a similar thought or a situation, and that is where writers distinguish themselves from each other. They leave their unique imprints this way, and a thoughtful reader can spot this uniqueness, in the style of writing, in the use of words, in the tone. This imprint is the “voice” or “voices” of the writer, drawn from her experience or the voices she chooses to hear.

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