Abstract

The poems contained in this series constitute meditations on family and inherited family stories. The speaker of these pieces is often ambivalent about the possibility of obtaining any access to the past, given her family's revisionist tendency to tell only partial stories. In light of this intentional inaccessibility, the speaker begins to piece together those shreds of narrative that she does know. Through a process of projection, imagination, and often repudiation, the speaker weaves new life into old 'acceptable' stories. In this process, the speaker seeks understanding of, and integration into, the world that forms her.