Flame, Glass and Ink are Poems, essays, and reading notes by Stefania Joori Suh

Tag: books

  • On A Woman’s Story by Annie Ernaux

    On returning to the quiet joy of reading, one discovers that some stories are not only theirs but yours too. Annie Ernaux’s A Woman’s Story was one of those stories—hers and mine.

    It was one of the days I visited my mom at the convalescent hospital for the elderly when I started reading this story, sitting by her bedside. Call it providence if you are religious or coincidence otherwise, but I wasn’t expecting it to become my story as well about my mom, who had been hospitalized since her stroke in January of this year. It was as though Ernaux was speaking to me as a daughter to daughter about her mom and mine, collapsing time and place and the cultural and social differences between us. No wonder I wanted to finish reading it at one sitting.

    This book is not of a certain literary genre. To call it a biography of her childhood and her mom’s influence on her misses the point of why it took her a year to finish the book. It’s much more than that. The absence of her mom made the author realize her mom’s place in her memory. Her mother was the first witness to Ernaux entering the world naked, and later, to her becoming the woman she is. It’s both a biological and an existential view of the author’s raison d’être. That there is no longer anyone on the other side of the first relationship, which has ended forever. It aches. It lingers. It evanesces. And before all of this will vanish into the ether, Ernaux lives to tell about the presence that was so familiar with her being that not seeing, hearing, and feeling it is painful to bear without letting it take the form of writing because writing is personal yet public, pensive but assertive, and quiet but powerful.

    I can understand the kind of ache the author felt after her mother’s death. Whether you loved her or not, you would never see her in life again. She may live in your vision of the past, but her person as a presence does not exist in this world. And that realization of forever disappearance would throw you into the abyss, stifled, blinded, and muffled—by the ineffable sorrow mixed with mystical longing.

    I think about my mom and me. What if she leaves this world soon—tomorrow, the day after, or anytime soon? Oftentimes, I wake up with indescribable terror at the thought that soon I will lose her to eternity if I breathe, like a panic attack. And it dawns on me that it is this feeling of detachment from the relationship, as the bond between mom and daughter is severed forever.

  • Mirror Lake

    




    




    Tonight, the sea is a sheet of glass,
    holding the moon’s timid face.

    “Don’t look at me—
    but don’t look away.”

    I lean toward her under the water,
    my face bruised with sadness,
    trembling beside hers
    in awe of still beauty.

    Two girls gaze back at me—
    sheepish, curious, luminescent:
    one made of ache,
    one made of flame.

    Her eyes—two diamonds
    cut from the tears of indifference.
    Drops fall into the lake,
    ricocheting sorrow into smile.

    I reach to touch their faces,
    but their reflections dissolve—
    a shimmer undone by my hand.

    I try to gather the pieces,
    but the more I gather,
    the deeper they sink
    to the bottom of the water.

    I lost the only friend
    who looked like me.
    Now my face alone—
    a ghost-girl drowning in her own reflection,
    born from love, but never for it.
    




    




    If you like this poem, you can support my writing at Ko-fi:
    




    https://ko-fi.com/steph79650
    




    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Paul Gauguin: With Sixpences Beneath a Visiting Moon
    
			
    

    




    The Writings of a Savage by Paul Gauguin

    With sixpences beneath a visiting moon, Gauguin could produce wonder. He was an artist in an endless pursuit of the rising sun at the dawn of a day with a flaming glory in dazzling magnificence. He was an intellectual with a wealth of knowledge drawn from a wide range of reading and classical Jesuit education. Gauguin was a man of irony, with contrasting colors reflected in the soul’s spectrum, from the passionate red to the sanguine blue, hopeful green, and melancholic purple, which is why he left Vincent Van Gogh alone in Arles, in never-ending loneliness. He craved recognition in a grand salon, yet he longed for independence on an island beneath an ancient sun. So, naturally, I wanted to know about Gauguin from his own writings, not from another in the form of a biography. Hence, The Writings of a Savage by Paul Gauguin.
    




    The book is an attractive compendium of mostly letters to his select few friends and, occasionally, to his wife, as well as essays and articles on the arts and religion, demonstrating Gauguin’s erudition and introspection. While reading the book, I could not help but think that if he had been a professional journalist or an art critic, his artistic talent would have basked in the glorious dawn sun rather than a struggling painter always on the verge of starvation. But most of all, what I wanted to know was if Gauguin had cut off Gogh’s ear, as I heard the rumor. Before reading this book, I had already assumed Gauguin was a man of temper because his image was incompatible with the Dutch painter’s delicate, sophisticated, and sensitive appearance and temperament. But while my prejudice was not entirely faulty, Gauguin proved himself innocent as he talked about it before his impending death away from civilization. Besides, my reading of Gauguin’s writings convinced me that he was not culpable for the injury, even if some like to assemble circumstantial rumors to make the French pariah artist appear jealous and violent toward the suffering Dutch genius. Gauguin might have been passionate, but his passion is directed toward his artistic creation of the worlds he sees in his mind, while the snobbishness of critics and bureaucrats curates the works of painters who know nothing about the arts.
    




    Imagination, innovation, and independence are the jewels of Gauguin’s prime colors that create his artistic Elysium. Gauguin was liberal in social stance, especially against clericalism, but sovereign in his artistic philosophy that how to draw doesn’t mean an exact copy of the figure because that’s not the purpose of art for art’s sake. As the title suggests, Gauguin was a noble savage who, as a disciple of Rousseau, returned to a primordial state of humanity to escape the over-intellectualized inertia of civilization, which depreciated and ignored his art. I still can’t say the book converted me to the cult of his paintings, which differ from those of Renoir, Monet, and Pissarro. But the book is a medium of looking through the labyrinth Gauguin has built, leading to his secret garden, wondrously vibrant and dazzlingly radiant.
    




    If this review moved you, you can support my writing at Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/steph79650
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    About Writing
    
			
    

    




    




    I can’t think of myself just simply vanishing into the passage of time, becoming a tribe of the forgotten. I don’t want to leave this world without a trace of my existence. That is one of the reasons why I have been submitting my work to journals and my first poetry chapbook since last May. Before, writing was my soliloquy in which I wallowed myself away from the cruel reality where God was unkind, let alone people. However, things have shifted for me. Now, it’s different. This is a time of striking hard when the iron is hot. And boy, is my iron so hot that I can’t hold it any longer.
    




    My first chapbook, “The Glass and the Flame,” consisting of 40 poems, was submitted to a couple of presses last week and this week. One of them required $15.00 for submission, which was quite costly considering that even if my chapbook were not selected, I would still have to pay the sum, just so the editors would read. Still, I decided it was worth it because I wanted to be famous. I want to mark my name in the aisles of bookstores from LA to Rome, to Paris, and wherever literate people live. Not vanity. Justice. My voice deserves to be heard. I write ache, loneliness, sorrow, and desire — with no shame. For whom should I feel shameful about expressing a free spirit in the language of beauty and truth? After all, even scholars have sex. No, my writing is not of Anaïs Nin. Instead, my writing follows the tradition of Anne Ernaux, Duras, and Sappho with the mind of Szymborska. Furthermore, elsewhere across the fields of desire, Plath calls for intelligent lust, which comes in the form of Eros in a purple cloak. And of course, Psyche comes in together. In the secret garden of language.
    




    I have received rejections from journals that tout themselves as publishers of so-called “intellectual,” “confessional,” “existential,” or “societal” poems that demand social activism. Writers are routinely defined by their social, racial, and cultural backgrounds, as if these alone drive their voices. For example, if you are a Korean-American woman from an immigrant family, you are expected to address prejudice and alienation, tinged with jingoism. The prevailing belief is that my race and gender are the only traits editors value — as if being an “exotic” woman seeking an audience is enough. God, when will they realize that, beyond differences, we share more in common?
    




    Maybe this is just a writer’s rant. If so, so be it. Nevertheless, I write the most universal human feelings about love and desire, about solitude and sorrow that any woman across all cultures, ages, and classes can understand. Forget the MFA writers. After all, writers do not need master’s degrees to be considered intellectuals whose work takes precedence over writers who have lived rather than studied.
    




    If this essay moved you, you can support my writing at Ko-fi: https://ko-fi.com/steph79650
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    Afterwards
    
			
    

    




    The haze of the great fires
    lingers beneath the evening sun
    in soft sunshine shadows;
    Every shadow sheds tears
    on the dust of the memories
    Windswept in allwhither.
    




    




    P.S.: Today, during the mass, the priest said some parishioners lost their homes due to the Great Fire this week and could not attend the mass. Presumably, they should live in Pasadena, about 15 minutes from where I live in the heart of Los Angeles, CA. It reminded me of the Great Fire of London (09/02/1666 to 09/06/1666), which was said to result from a fire in a bakery in the city. I have never seen anything to that effect in my life. I can still smell the burning, and the ashes from the fires scatter around the city. I hope those affected by the fires will have the care and help they need promptly and effectively. 
    

    
			
    
		
    
		
	
  • 
		
		
    
			
			
    prompt 114 on books to repeat all times
    
			
    

    What book could you read over and over again?
    




    




    If I am a miraculous survivor of a plane crash or a sunken ship on an uncharted island, I will not become a mad woman with these books to read repeatedly. 
    




    1. Jane Eyre by Charlott Bronte – Since I first read it when I was thirteen, I have always found a kindred spirit in this classic but timeless book. As Ben Jonson called his rival and friend William Shakespeare not a man of the time, but a man of all seasons, Jane Eyre is a classic in the sense that it was fabulous in her time as it is in my time. Unlike Jane Austen’s characters, who are more vibrant and energetic with dashing young men and society, Charlotte’s characters are somber outside but passionate inside, like a condensed energy blasting, untamed, powerful, and beautiful penetrating the heart of the readers and lingering in mind changing the colors with forever lusciousness. Jane Eyre may not be Botticelli’s Venus or a Helen whose face launched a thousand ships, but her subdued beauty withstands the change of seasons and doesn’t stale. 
    




    2. Ancient Magik and other books by Philip Matyszak – I love ancient history before Christ because the world was packed with pagan gods, goddesses, and spirits. But to solely focus on occultism is not my cup of tea, as I wouldn’t say I like the precarious approach and perception of things supernatural as if it were a domain of young adults or teenagers. Matyszak, an eminent ancient historian who is deeply conversant with the ancient magik elements from Love Spells to Drawing the Moon to summoning the dead from the Underworld, fits my taste for historical accounts of supernatural practices prevalent in the ancient world from East to West, north to south. His wealth of knowledge draws on extensive reading and impressive research, but he wears it with general readers in mind in wit. So much so that he reminds me of Herodotus, the father of history as we know it now in individual account narratives. With Matyszak’s books, I can quickly and willingly find myself lost in the misty past in one fell swoop. 
    




    You may think I am a classic reader, but I also read books written in our time like magazines, which I do not read more than once. So the above-listed books are my favorite all-time books, like a cup of hot oolong tea that I always seek as my comfort drink, never out of fashion.