Victoria Chang - Dear Memory: Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief

Poetry

Asian American Poetry: The Next Generation (editor)

Circle

Salvinia Molesta

The Boss

Barbie Chang

OBIT

Childrens books

Is Mommy? (illustrated by Marla Frazee)

Love, Love

Letters on Writing, Silence, and Grief

VICTORIA CHANG

MILKWEED EDITIONS

2021, Text and art by Victoria Chang

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Milkweed Editions, 1011 Washington Avenue South, Suite 300, Minneapolis, Minnesota 55415.

(800) 520-6455

milkweed.org

Published 2021 by Milkweed Editions

Printed in Canada

Cover design by Mary Austin Speaker

Cover art by Victoria Chang

Author photo by Issac Fitzgerald

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First Edition

Milkweed Editions, an independent nonprofit publisher, gratefully acknowledges sustaining support from the Alan B. Slifka Foundation and its president, Riva Ariella Ritvo-Slifka; the Ballard Spahr Foundation; Copper Nickel; the Jerome Foundation; the McKnight Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; the National Poetry Series; the Target Foundation; and other generous contributions from foundations, corporations, and individuals. Also, this activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board Operating Support grant, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund. For a full listing of Milkweed Editions supporters, please visit milkweed.org.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Chang, Victoria, 1970- author.

Title: Dear memory : letters on writing, silence, and grief / by Victoria Chang.

Description: First edition. | Minneapolis, Minnesota : Milkweed Editions, 2021. | Summary: From National Book Award-longlisted poet Victoria Chang, a collection of literary letters and mementos on the art of remembering across generations-- Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2021007010 (print) | LCCN 2021007011 (ebook) | ISBN 9781571313928 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781571317360 (ebook)

Classification: LCC PS3603.H3575 D43 2021 (print) | LCC PS3603.H3575 (ebook) | DDC 816/.6--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007010

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021007011

Milkweed Editions is committed to ecological stewardship. We strive to align our book production practices with this principle, and to reduce the impact of our operations in the environment. We are a member of the Green Press Initiative, a nonprofit coalition of publishers, manufacturers, and authors working to protect the worlds endangered forests and conserve natural resources. Dear Memory was printed on acid-free 10% postconsumer-waste paper by Friesens Corporation.

For my mother and father, my grandparents, great-grandparents

The sense of mortalityour own, but also that of those we most lovedoesnt only cast us backward. It also propels imagination forward.

Christian Wiman, He Held Radical Light

There are no stars tonight

but those of memory.

Yet how much room for memory there is

in the loose girdle of soft rain.

Hart Crane, from My Grandmothers Love Letters

DEAR MEMORY

Mother, Sister, and me

I have so many questions. What city were you born in? What was your American birthday? Your Chinese birthday? What did your mother do? What did your grandmother do? Who was your father, grandfather? Its too late now. But I would like to know.

I would like to know why your mother followed Chiang Kai-shek, taking you and your six (or seven?) siblings across China to Taiwan. I would like to know what was said in the planning meeting. I would like to know who was in that meeting. Where that meeting took place.

I would like to know the people who were left behind. I would like to know if there are other people who look like me.

I would like to know if you took a train. If you walked. If you had pockets in your dress. If you wore pants. If your hand was in a fist, if you held a small stone. I would like to know if you thought the trees were black or green at night, if it was cold enough to see your breath, to sting your fingers. I would like to know who you spoke to along the way. If you had some preserved salty plums, which we both love, in your pocket.

I would like to know if you carried a bag. If you had a book in your bag. I would like to know where you got your food for the trip. Why I never knew your mother, father, or your siblings. I would like to have known your father. I would like to know what his voice sounded like. If it was brittle or pale. If it was blue or red. I would like to know the sound he made when he swallowed food.

I would like to know if your mother was afraid. During college, I spent several weeks with her in Taiwan. She bought me bao zi, buns, every morningthe bao that steamed in small plastic bags with no ties, and sweet dou jiang, tofu milk. Always too hot for me to drink. She sat there and watched me eat, complained to me about your brothers wife. Complained of being sick and how no one would help her.

Do you know how long it took me to figure out how to call an ambulance? And then when they came, she refused to go. I still remember how the two men stared at me, as if I could move a country.

Listen. Its the wind. Thats the same wind from your countries. Sometimes if I listen closely at night, I can hear you drop a small bag at the door. I hear the sound of the bao touching the ground and the wind trying to open the bag.

But when I open the door, theres nothing there. Just the same wind. Thousands of years old. Happy birthday, wind. Happy birthday, Mother. April 6, 1940. I know this now. All the nurses, doctors, and morticians asked me, so I memorized it, your American birthday. April 6, 1940, I said again and again. As if I had known this my whole life.

Mother

Mother

Today I found a Certificate of Marriage and a translation of it by the President Translation Service. The date is July 26, 1939. Now I know your name: Miss Chang Chi-Yin. I also know you were twenty-seven and Grandfather twenty-six. I wonder if this was considered strange at the time, your being older than him.