Intercultural Collaborations

I’ve been considering what Plato said: “wise men speak because they have something to say, fools because they have to say something.” But can we all sit around waiting for something useful to say? We feel uncomfortable and so we feel the need to fill the gap with empty words. But why take up space with something meaningless? Perhaps it’s the illusion of progress, illusion of meaning, the notion that this conversation, this life, is going somewhere. We’re so scared it could all be nothing. I don’t want to fill the silence for the sake of it. I want the words to have meaning. Or just listen to the eloquence and depth of silence.   You shake your head, in disbelief that silence can have meaning. To you, silence is only a barrier, an awkward space, the evidence of a lack of connection, a lack of intimacy, a lack of identity.  I tell you of a silence I know. Two people sitting together, comfortably, without a word: bound by a connection so deep they can let their li...

1.  Only ink is immortal. The flowers wither: life is a vicious cycle. They will never live again, like our childhood together. Those days are dead, but living in my mind. I wonder if your head houses those memories in a palace, or if after the years went by they were swept away into a crammed storage box, or a dusty corner. I keep them safe, clean, ready to replay. But how do I know it will always be like this? One by one I may disintegrate. And I know; only ink will save me. 2.                   A memory falls away and I am a little less myself, I want to catch it, cherish it, keep it forever. Who are without our memories?   Sentences wander and form in my mind I fall asleep to the padding steps of ideas and words: the task of making a straight line in my head. Morning comes and all I see are footsteps something was here before –          a little piece...

      Renga 1 The words enter me and I feel like I know you. You have told me stories countless times of these places, with so much detail I inscribed every word in my mind. Then I walked those same roads you shared with me. You life is not alien to mine, we shared our stories. But I am not arrogant, I will never know your life like you do. But I think I know this place. You bought it alive for me and then I saw it myself. The day we first experienced it together, you were open, it was real. I felt like your home was mine regardless of my innocence. The moment I stepped through that front door, there became a sense of freedom and unlikely comfort. Your mother cared, the sun was shining and the time seemed endless. We continued a small routine, I was able to find solace in this home, regardless of your absence. It began to grow and the distance was no longer visible. Your world I had initially experienced turned to isolation, the initial comfort dissipated as your w...

Who can write whom? Who can’t write whom? Are there certain things you should or shouldn’t write about when you write about: a different culture, or your own culture?  These are difficult questions with a lot of grey area but they are questions that as readers and writers we need to be aware of. I am not going to claim to have the ultimate answer as I am still learning and trying to understand these issues more and more; but I believe the core of the answer is about understanding and respect. Representation and the idea of voices of a community is a complex issue. Many voices are lacking from dominant narratives however I believe the world is changing. Writers and artists are increasingly aware of this and many are trying to create a voice for those voices that are small, have been overridden, or have never had a platform. Writing about another culture is difficult because it is something different, it can’t be easily extracted from your own experience and mind. It ta...

Our writing is not separate from our environment and the life we live. These things have a way of channeling in to our writing, sometimes creating the mold to write in, sometimes just trickling through.  Not everything that washes over us penetrates our skin. Some things may hit our skin and slip off and we never give it a thought again. But most of the time our life and what we consume and take to heart seeps in unknowingly; and only after we bear the fruits of our creation, we can identify the seed that was originally planted deep into us. My habitus, as a writer is inevitably made up of everything that has influenced how I see the world, how I understand and how I act and live: everything that makes up who I am. I am constantly evolving as I learn more,  meet different people, and life and its lessons feed into my writing. As a writer I usually write to understand: to understand myself, the world, other people, and encourage people to understand each other o...