The Poetics of Being Seen

Christine Shan Shan Hou and Elaine Kahn are poets who both reliably fill absence with splendor. They often do so with a winking sense of humor, as when Hou writes in their poem “Heaven”: I will continue to walk through life in a forward-facing manner / Towards water and hills / Towards fruit-bearing trees and temples / Towards bougainvilleas / I will feel heavy with belief and loyalty / & look a certain way on the outside / While feeling an uncertain way on the inside. Similarly, Kahn’s brief but exacting lines bear a mantra-like quality that feels nothing short of revelatory. In her poem “To the Death of Forests” she writes: Trees are insufferable / Their giant leaves / Sad / Showy / Their relentless introspection / and their clarity / They know how to stand there / In the absence of anything splendid.

Below, they talk about how secrets and taboos can function in confessional poetry, the transgressive act of writing poems, using poetry to access strength, motherhood, daughterhood, and the value of remaining sensitive enough to make art in a violent and volatile world. And speaking of protecting sensitivity in spite of certain pain, this conversation unfolded online, all while Hou was getting tattooed.

Christine Hou: I have been thinking a lot about fear lately with the beginning of the pandemic last year, and now with the rise in Anti-Asian hate crimes. When I am scared, I want to disappear. I don’t want to be seen. This is what the last year has been like for me. I was just reading Celeste Ng’s New York Times essay, “Keeping Love Close.” In it, she writes: WHEN YOUR FACE MAKES YOU VULNERABLE, one solution is to disappear: Keep your face hidden; don’t go far from home; don’t leave the house at all.” I think one of the reasons I love writing poetry is because it is faceless, but it is also deeply personal. I both long to be nothing, but also fear the inevitability of it.

Elaine Kahn: Poetry walks the line between assertion-of-self and anonymity. It’s definitely one of the things that draws me to it. The instability of poetic language and the convention of poetry’s “speaker” make it particularly suited to a kind of wild confessionalism, free of the solidity of normative prose. In a poem, statements and images are often connected through proximity alone; it’s left to the reader to determine any relationship between them. This troubles the position of the poet as “author,” which allows me as a writer to work through possibilities of thought with the force of conviction.

CH: I wish I could write straightforward confessionals, like personal essays, but I feel like that would call attention to myself in a way that makes me uncomfortable. I like how my poems have a way of disguising my vulnerability. I think this has something to do with my first-generation Chinese-American upbringing, but I am not entirely sure. Do your poems make you feel vulnerable?

EK: That’s such an interesting question. I think for me, the answer is no, they don’t make me feel vulnerable. Which is funny because my poems are certainly intimate, and often sort of personally compromising…But, now that I think of it, I’d say my poems actually embolden me. In particular, I would say that performing my poems for others makes me feel really powerful. How do you feel about giving readings? Is it something you enjoy? How does reading your work out loud relate to your written poetry?

CH: My poems make me feel strong and fearless too! And I find that reading my poems out loud amplifies these feelings. There’s always a little anxiety right before a reading, but overall it is something I do enjoy. My poems are like secrets hidden in various pockets of my psyche and performing them allows me the opportunity to air them out, or to release them into the world within a safe environment—safe because ultimately I am the only one who knows what secrets they are referring to. Readings become this empowering act of shedding my fears in a public space. Your poems are soft and defiant. Soft due to their brevity and defiant in regards to their intimately personal nature

EK: Ah okay! That’s interesting! Nothing in my writing feels like it is secret from anyone who reads (or hears) the poems. It’s more like…I am a secret from the people who read the poems? Like in my mind, I imagine—and hope—that my poems are fairly legible. The only aspect of the work that I believe to be completely obscured is who it is that is speaking the poem. Does this make any sense?

CH: I find your poems to be both legible and refined. They feel deeply personal, but also aphoristic and clairvoyant, like you are reading my mind. For instance your poem “My Wild Mind”:

my wild mind

will not let me cum!

I relate to this poem so much! I often feel like my brain is a battlefield of distractions and feelings. I am often multitasking when I write—I am actually currently being tattooed as I write this. Several of your poems are sexual in nature. What about confessional poetry do you think lends itself to being more open about sexuality and mental health?

EK: I just kinda am open about that stuff. I mean I don’t like, necessarily lead with it, but it doesn’t feel especially different to write about mental health and sex than anything else…I wasn’t raised with a sense of taboo around either of those subjects. I suppose that for me, the central transgression of poetry is poetry itself.

I love the idea of poetry as the ultimate transgression.

CH: I love the idea of poetry as the ultimate transgression. I think that’s what makes art so powerful—the inherently fearless nature of actually making it! I was raised in a much different household where mental health and sexuality were, and still are, considered inappropriate topics and never discussed around the house. As a result, I used to carry a lot of shame around those subjects. The fact that I worked hard so as to unlearn that shame has been empowering and even more freeing to be able to put it into my writing. I think in a lot of ways, poetry is where I feel I can be my most authentic self, fearless and shameless.

EK: Speaking of the ways we were raised…some of my favorite moments in The Joy and the Terror Are Both in the Swallowing referenced your daughters. For example in “Playground” when you write: The difference between me and my daughter / is size and money. Has motherhood changed the way you write? Do you think you’ll encourage your daughters to read your work?

CH: Motherhood has helped me to embrace and importantly, not judge the more vulnerable side of my being. I think part of it is experiencing a type of love that I never knew existed. It is utterly profound and unlike any other love I have felt, and I will do anything to protect it. This has led me to be more anxious about mine and my kids’ health safety when I am out in public. For instance, I now carry pepper spray with me and my heart rate automatically speeds up and my muscles tense. I think once this instinctual protection mode is activated, I emotionally armor up and want to hide all of my—or what I see as—weaknesses.

The act of spreading, organizing, and especially paring words on a page becomes a release valve for my pent-up emotions and fears. More importantly, writing provides a space for these vulnerabilities to breathe and rest as well as a place to acknowledge and honor their existence. I don’t think I will specifically encourage my daughters to read my work, but it will always be there if they are looking for it. Does motherhood inform any of your poems?

EK: Oh yes, definitely. My relationship with my mother has been the most formative and important relationship of my life. It’s like the gravity in my personal universe and certainly shows up all over my writing. Beyond that, my work is interested in thinking about what it means to surrender (or not) to life’s patterns, of which reproduction is certainly one.

CH: Does your mother read your poetry? If so, what does she think of it?

EK: Yes, she does read it. In fact, if I haven’t sent her a new poem in a while, she starts to bug me about it a little! I sent her a couple of new pieces recently and she wrote back “Your poems make me smile because I see you gritting your teeth and writing them down.” She has told me that, besides epidemiology (her first choice of a career for me), being a poet is my highest and best calling. She can definitely be critical though, as well. She’s an artist (a painter) and a pretty incredible writer in her own right. She and my stepdad come to my readings whenever they are able. I am very grateful for the amount of support that they both give me. How do your parents feel about your writing? If I remember correctly, they were both at the launch of Community Garden for Lonely Girls.

The act of spreading, organizing, and especially paring words on a page becomes a release valve for my pent-up emotions and fears.


CH: Yes, my parents were there! Generally, my parents are very supportive of my writing and also attend readings when they are able to. They also own my books but haven’t actually read any of them. With poetry, just like with visual art, they get stuck on the idea of what a poem “means” and can’t seem to read it any other way. Their common response is: “I don’t understand it. You have to explain it to us.” As a poet and visual artist, this feels really frustrating because as you and I both know, there is no one way to interpret any work of art. I think this is largely due to their generational and cultural upbringing. Both sides of my family were born relatively poor in India, so they didn’t have much exposure to art until I started studying art history in college and taking them to museums. I wish they were more engaged with my writing and open to the discomfort (and joy!) presented by nonlinear narratives that poetry has to offer, but I have also accepted this as an obstacle they may not overcome, and am OK with it. Mostly, I am very grateful for the support that they have offered and continue to offer.

Epidemiology seems like such a random vocation compared to being a poet. Why is that your mother’s first choice for you?

EK: You know, I’d never actually asked her so I just gave her a call and she said:

Because you were good at computers and you were good at seeing relationships and you were good at asking the right questions. But then I noticed you might be too sensitive to negotiate groups of people. In poetry, you also have to negotiate groups of people, but they are also sensitive, so it seemed like maybe that would work out better.

Ha! Thank you for prompting me to ask her. Did your parents have a preferred career path for you?

CH: Pretty much anything but the arts! In Chinese culture it is commonly joked that the only career paths that are an option are: doctor, lawyer, or engineer. I studied poetry, photography, and art history in school.

It’s interesting that your mom emphasizes the word “sensitive.” My parents have often told me that I am “overly sensitive,” and perhaps I am, but I think sensitivity does not necessarily equate to weakness. Instead, I think of it as the ability to finely tune into one’s interior landscape—to examine its features, feel its textures, and to question its weathering form. Unfortunately, I don’t think the world is particularly kind towards sensitive people, just like the world isn’t especially kind towards vulnerable people. The question for me then becomes: How do I counteract the cruelty of the world without simultaneously hiding or erasing a part of my being? Maybe one answer is love.

EK: I think for me, the answer is: humor. Humor is so crucial to my ability to live—and to my ability to make art. So, yes. Humor and poetry.

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