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Adrie Kusserow: War Metaphysics for a Sudanese Girl
For Aciek Arok Deng
I leave the camp, unable to breathe,
.
me Freud girl, after her interior,
she “Lost Girl,” after my purse,
.
her face:
dark as eggplant,
her gaze:
unpinnable, untraceable,
floating, open, defying the gravity
I was told keeps pain in place.
.
Maybe trauma doesn’t harden,
packed, tight as sediment at the bottom of her psyche,
dry and cracked as the desert she crossed,
maybe memory doesn’t stalk her
with its bulging eyes.
.
Once inside the body, does war move up or down?
Maybe the body pisses it out,
maybe it dissipates, like sweat and fog
under the heat of yet another colonial God?
.
In America, we say “Tell us your story, Lost Girl,
you’ll feel lighter,
it’s the memories you must expel,
the bumpy ones, the tortures, the rapes, the burnt huts.”
.
So Aciek brings forth all the war she can muster,
and the doctors lay it on a table, like a stillbirth
and pick through the sharpest details
bombs, glass, machetes
and because she wants to please them
she coughs up more and more,
dutifully emptying the sticky war
like any grateful Lost Girl in America should
when faced with a flock of white coats.
.
This is how it goes at the Trauma Center:
all day the hot poultice of talk therapy,
coaxing out the infection,
at night, her host family trying not to gawk,
their veins pumping neon fascination,
deep in the suburbs, her life flavoring dull muzungul ives,
spicing up supper, really,
each Lost Girl a bouillon cube of horror.
—
Note: The Lost Boys and Girls refers to the 17,000 children in southern Sudan who fled their homes in 1987 seeking refuge from the civil war. They walked 1,000 miles to a Kenyan refugee camp. By the time they reached there, half of them had died.
Muzungu is the East African word for white person.
Adrie Kusserow is a cultural anthropologist who works with Sudanese refugees in trying to build schools in war-worn South Sudan. Currently an associate professor of Cultural Anthropology at St. Michael’s College in Vermont, Kusserow earned her PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard University. She is the author of two collections of poetry, both published by BOA Editions, Hunting Down the Monk (2002), and Refuge (2013).
Copyright 2013 Adrie Kusserow
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This entry was posted on February 11, 2019 by Vox Populi in Opinion Leaders, Poetry, Social Justice, War and Peace and tagged Adrie Kusserow, Africa, Muzungu, South Sudan, Sudan, War Metaphysics for a Sudanese Girl, War poetry.Shortlink
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She infuses her language and imagery with a raw vividness and breathtaking intensity. I was overwhelmed by the sheer power and passion of this electric poem; reading it was an indelible experience.
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Kusserow is a master!
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very powerful, poetry is music for the body in pain, which does not always respond to talk therapy as much new neuro research shows…the body and the poet keeps the score here, we just need to keep listening. adrie, thank you for your brilliant work! keep on writing…
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We need to do more to hear the perspectives of others, while being conscious about force feeding a cultural prescription. Beautiful poem!
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Makes my stomach hurt to read this, “Brings forth all the war she can muster”…
Makes me think of the deep , sometimes bumbling, desire to help alongside the desire to please those seen to be saviors.
No simple fix and sometimes what’s offered isn’t what’s needed.
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This a ruthlessly brilliant poem. To alter lines from Adrie Kusserow’s poem, but which truly apply to the poem : it is“ the hot poultice…coaxing out the infection….”
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How intense, how vivid and truth-telling. This took my breath away. This is why I read VP.
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The vivid imagery of doctors, stillbirth and a lack of true voice for Aciek haunts me. Powerful stuff….
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Powerful, vibrant, vivid imagery to bring us closer to a glimpse of understanding what it might be like to carry such horror in a land that pretends such horrors don’t exist or aren’t connected to our shared human experience. Thank you Adrie!!
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Wow. The truth most of us cower away from. We need to hear more.
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Honestly, this is so powerful, beautiful, painful. I think this should be required reading by all educators, health care providers, case workers, social workers, counselors, etc. who have the honor and responsibility to work with refugee-background individuals. Sharing a trauma story often does the opposite of healing, which is clearly Adrie’s message here. Oh, just so powerful. I’m definitely going to have my students read this in my Teaching Refugee-background Students course. Thank you!
This:
So Aciek brings forth all the war she can muster,
and the doctors lay it on a table, like a stillbirth
and pick through the sharpest details
bombs, glass, machetes
and because she wants to please them
she coughs up more and more,
dutifully emptying the sticky war
like any grateful Lost Girl in America should
when faced with a flock of white coats.
LikeLiked by 2 people
What a beautiful poem I’d love to see more by this author
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This poem knocked the wind out of me. It’s a marvel how Kusserow’s words cut so close to the bone and complicate any facile understanding of others’ suffering and our own good intentions.
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“Maybe trauma doesn’t harden,
packed, tight as sediment at the bottom of her psyche,
dry and cracked as the desert she crossed,”
The imagery is profound.
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Amazing poem!
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Terrific. “the hot poultice of talk therapy coaxing out the infection.” hits the button..(I’m an anthropologist who counsels brutalized refugees.)
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