A close-reading of Kristin chang's how i Was fathered
The following poem originally appeared in issue 24 of The Adroit Journal
How gently he injured
the earth, gardened us
from blood-soft
loam, taught us tender
meant teeth-ready. Taught us
to hunt birds, break necks
like bread. Taught us winged
meant wounded & bled
meant quiet
hands holding
your body open.
We bled four times a year
when he came home
& brought gifts
from Taiwan: glazed dates,
osmanthus
cakes. He’d watch us
eat, our crumb
-coated lips & sugar
-sanded tongues.
Good eat? he’d ask,
& when we said yes
he’d ask did you earn it?
& then we hid
our sticky hands
in shame.
Later, blood puddled
our palms & we were careful
not to drip
a path back to our bodies.
who earned it? My father comes
from a butcher family, eats only
what he can kill.
who earned it?
You did. You did. You did.
At night, I dream
of god hanging up
the constellations
on meathooks, of death
in some natural
disaster, our house
flooding, my brother & I
floating to the ceiling. But
there is no disaster
more natural than a man-made one.
We fatten for his fist, eat cake
after cake, the sweet
slurring our faces.
With full mouths, we beg
for more, we take & he gives
it to us good. He feeds
& we grow
into the slaughter
we were born for.
the earth, gardened us
from blood-soft
loam, taught us tender
meant teeth-ready. Taught us
to hunt birds, break necks
like bread. Taught us winged
meant wounded & bled
meant quiet
hands holding
your body open.
We bled four times a year
when he came home
& brought gifts
from Taiwan: glazed dates,
osmanthus
cakes. He’d watch us
eat, our crumb
-coated lips & sugar
-sanded tongues.
Good eat? he’d ask,
& when we said yes
he’d ask did you earn it?
& then we hid
our sticky hands
in shame.
Later, blood puddled
our palms & we were careful
not to drip
a path back to our bodies.
who earned it? My father comes
from a butcher family, eats only
what he can kill.
who earned it?
You did. You did. You did.
At night, I dream
of god hanging up
the constellations
on meathooks, of death
in some natural
disaster, our house
flooding, my brother & I
floating to the ceiling. But
there is no disaster
more natural than a man-made one.
We fatten for his fist, eat cake
after cake, the sweet
slurring our faces.
With full mouths, we beg
for more, we take & he gives
it to us good. He feeds
& we grow
into the slaughter
we were born for.
Kristin Chang's debut chapbook, Past Lives, Future Bodies is available for from Black Lawrence Press. Her website is kristinchang.com and she is located on Twitter @KXinming.
This poem was originally published in issue twenty-four of The Adroit Journal. Read the issue in its entirety here, and visit the Adroit Journal's current issue, which also features Kristin Chang's work, here.
Close-reading
by Alegrarse Staff
Kristin Chang is not only a master at exploring the body and its relationship to violence, she also excels at placing that violence in context, whether it be generational, spanning a lineage, or holding a specific horrible incident under some microscopic lens. This poem, “How I Was Fathered,” is, in my opinion, some of Chang’s best work, an exceptionally well-written poem that manages to both be focused yet aware of the vast land before the narrator.
The poem opens with an immediate juxtaposition of innocence and perpetration of violence, which establishes that this narrative is at the crux of the rest of the poem. The first line places the two opposing images in symmetrical rhythm; “How gently / he injured” are two phrases that are virtually syllabically identical. This only furthers the notion that, at least at this instance of the poem, the narrator finds kindness and cruelty tragically inseparable.
At this point, we assume that the “he” in the poem is the subject of the title, the father, and the narrator bombards the reader with a series of further contradictions only made stronger by their careful enjambments: “taught us tender // meant teeth-ready. Taught us / to hunt birds, break necks // like bread. Taught us winged / meant wounded.” Despite the fact that an initial reading may suggest that the father character implicated in all these malicious actions is to be solely met with disdain and contempt, there is a subtle well-crafted dissonance taking place in the poem. The title verbs the word “father” into “fathered” and is careful to not explicitly name the father, interestingly enough, until the poem’s middle. More than that, the poem mirrors the verbage at place in the title, being sure to only include the layered actions that the father was performing, stretching the ever-thinning fabric holding together familial bonds in the face of terror.
It is at this point in the poem when some of our questions as to why the father is still present in the narrator’s life are answered. The father serves as a kind of bridge for the narrator and their family, connecting them, across the diaspora, back to their homeland. Chang writes, “he came home / & brought gifts // from Taiwan: glazed dates, / osmanthus // cakes. He’d watch us / eat, our crumb // -coated lips & sugar / -sanded tongues.” Yet, Chang is careful to not let the reader accept this kindness. The enjambment of “He’d watch us / eat” is riddled with suggestions of power, the gaze of the father establishing him as an insurmountable authoritarian. Chang continues then this scene and establishment of power: “Good eat? he’d ask, / & when we said yes // he’d ask did you earn it? / & then we hid // our sticky hands / in shame.” The father character is perpetually reminding his family, what he views to be his subordinates, of his essentialness in their lives, that they would be nothing without him.
The question “who earned it?” is now established as a refrain, as it percolates the murky, clouded mind of the father’s children: “My father comes / from a butcher family, eats only // what he can kill. / who earned it? // You did. You did. You did.” This is a kind of haunting that seems to suggest that even when the father is not physically present in the family’s lives, they are forever made immobile by his own forced dominance.
Chang uses the butcher narrative to finish the poem from here on out. She writes the family characters as inhuman, another thing for the father to massacre, the subjects of his brutal rule. The narrator connects the idea of “who earned it?” to an end wholly separate from the father figure, as they beg for this separation by way of something entirely out of their control. They cannot earn this separation, and it needs to come from a power somehow higher than the father: “At night, I dream // of god hanging up / the constellations // on meathooks, of death / in some natural // disaster, our house / flooding, my brother & I // floating to the ceiling.” Yet it seems even this will be in vain, as “there is no disaster // more natural than a man-made one.” The narrator feels as if, like an animal bred to be eaten, their entire existence is doomed for an eventual violence. The narrator’s voice now balances desperation with hopelessness, as Chang pleads, “We fatten for his fist, eat cake // after cake, the sweet slurring our faces. // With full mouths, we beg / for more, we take & he gives…He feeds / & we grow // into the slaughter / we were born for.” The butcher is a perfect metaphor for Chang to use, the idea of predestination and inescapability of death so much more significant than a poem reckoning with only mortality. The difference lies therein—death is not something that will just eventually happen, it is being accelerated towards. It is clear that any mention of gentleness throughout the poem has only served to extenuate the harm.
Kristin Chang's debut chapbook, Past Lives, Future Bodies is available for from Black Lawrence Press. Her website is kristinchang.com and she is located on Twitter @KXinming.