Review of Chath Piersath's on Earth Beneath Sky, Loom Press, 2020

Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement Volume 16 Issue 1 Article 13 2021 Review of Chath pierSath's On Earth Beneath Sky, Loom Press, 2020 George Chigas University of Massachusetts Lowell, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/jsaaea Part of the American Literature Commons, Literature in English, North America, Ethnic and Cultural Minority Commons, Poetry Commons, and the South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons Recommended Citation Chigas, George (2021) "Review of Chath pierSath's On Earth Beneath Sky, Loom Press, 2020," Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement: Vol. 16 : Iss. 1, Article 13. DOI: 10.7771/2153-8999.1222 Available at: https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/jsaaea/vol16/iss1/13 This document has been made available through Purdue e-Pubs, a service of the Purdue University Libraries. Please contact [email protected] for additional information. This is an Open Access journal. This means that it uses a funding model that does not charge readers or their institutions for access. Readers may freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles. This journal is covered under the CC BY-NC-ND license. Chigas: Review of Chath pierSath's On Earth Beneath Sky, Loom Press, 2020 Vol. 16 Iss. 1 (2021) www.JSAAEA.org Book Review: pierSath, C. (2020). On Earth Beneath Sky. Loom Press. 143 pp. ISBN: 978- 1735168920 Reviewed by George Chigas University of Massachusetts Lowell In the aftermath of genocide, survivors must often undergo a lifelong process of healing in an attempt to make sense of the traumatic events that ruptured their lives. They strive to come to a new understanding of themselves and the world and restore their trust in others. They attempt to regain a sense of self- worth and empowerment necessary for a healthy and meaningful existence. Each survivor’s journey is unique, and some are able to go further than others. Those equipped to brave the dangers and difficulties of returning to the traumatic memories of the past and record their journey in words or images are rare and precious. Chath pierSath is one of those rare and precious survivors. His latest collection of poems and sketches, On Earth Beneath Sky, attests to the gains he has made along this difficult path, as well as the ongoing struggles with which he must still contend. While the traumatic legacy of the genocide may always haunt and cling to him like a shadow, the gains he has made in his journey toward healing mean it is no longer able to overpower him as it once did as he strives to reinvent himself and rediscover the world around him. The careful organization of the 68 poems and sketches that comprise On Earth Beneath Sky purposefully chart Chath’s journey up to this point. Rather than follow a chronological sequence that might erroneously infer “closure” or “moving on,” the poems are divided into five sections that articulate an ongoing tug-of-war between self-discovery and alienation, loneliness and love. The five sections are bracketed by two poems that refer to Chath’s mother, whose spirit is both at the center and periphery of the collection. The first poem, entitled “My Mother Wanted My Brother to Take Me Back to Her,” records Chath’s escape from Cambodia in 1980 with his older brother and sister, and his permanent separation from his mother, who died two years later in Cambodia, when Chath, 14 years old, was living in Denver, Colorado. The final poem, “The Way I Want to Remember My Cambodia,” marks Chath’s current place in his journey toward healing. The poem tells us firstly, that Chath is making progress in his attempt to integrate the traumatic events of the genocide into his understand of himself and the world and secondly, that he is ready to embark on the next phase his journey as a Cambodian American poet and artist. The final poem of the collection invokes the memory of his mother’s cooking fire, “I recall my mother’s cooking fire, her salted-fish grilled on burning charcoal,” and ends with the lines: Readers are free to copy, display, and distribute this article, as long as the work is attributed to the author(s) and the Journal of Southeast Asian American Education & Advancement, it is distributed for non-commercial purposes only, and no alteration or transformation is made in the work. More details of this Creative Commons license are available at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. All other uses must be approved by the author(s) or JSAAEA. Journal of Southeast Asian American Education & Advancement, Vol. 16. Iss. 1. (2021) ISSN: 2153-8999 Published by Purdue e-Pubs, 2021 1 Journal of Southeast Asian American Education and Advancement, Vol. 16 [2021], Iss. 1, Art. 13 I want to hear how the Goddesses turn what is ugly into something beautiful. Make me part of that secret. Let me dance in your sun. Both poems, the first and last, deal with Chath’s ambivalence about leaving his mother and mother country as he nevertheless continues to carry them both with him in his heart and soul. The five sections of poems and sketches between these two poems record key moments in Chath’s process of healing that brought him to this point. Claim Me, America The first section, “Claim Me, America” is comprised of 13 poems that describe two opposing forces Chath has struggled to reconcile in his new life in America. The first celebrates the promise and opportunity of his new home, while the second reminds him of the burden of survival that continues to limit his capacity to take full advantage of these opportunities. Chath’s gratitude for the possibilities life in America offers is expressed in the second poem in this section, “America, my America.” He lays down his heart and soul before his adoptive country asking to be taken in and permitted to experience her climate and geography and freedom. As a refugee, he takes nothing for granted: I salute you, America, for helping my dream take flight, Letting me be, see and become, to work and play, Eat and sleep to life’s breathlessly beautiful hills, Mountains, valleys, above and below. In a subsequent poem in this opening section, “In Paradise,” Chath acknowledges the personal limitations that constrain him along his journey of healing in America, while anticipating the steps he knows he must take if he is to liberate himself from these constraints. While working on a farm in Massachusetts, Chath observes the birds around him: I can’t help but envy their freedom, How lavish their colorful plumes, sky rulers, While I farm in the sun, longing for love. I should live other lives I haven’t tried, Travel as a vagabond, meeting singers and dancers. Instead, I regress, fantasize, dodge truth, craft false hopes, Give away my time, my breath, to earn half a life, Stuck in the now, with tomorrow a last resort. Upon turning 18, Chath pursued his quest “to live other lives [he hadn’t yet] tried.” (In fact, Chath’s actual age is two years older than his “American age.” He and his brother recorded his date of birth as 1970 instead of 1968, when applying for asylum in the Thai refugee camp, in order to give him more years to recoup his education after arriving in the United States). Upon turning 18 and becoming a legal adult, Chath took the necessary steps to become a U.S. citizen. At the same time, he changed his name from Uy Bun Thoeun, his “Cambodian name,” to his “American name,” https://docs.lib.purdue.edu/jsaaea/vol16/iss1/13 DOI: 10.7771/2153-8999.1222 2 Chigas: Review of Chath pierSath's On Earth Beneath Sky, Loom Press, 2020 Chath pierSath, which roughly translates as “National Temple” and also recognizes his oldest brother, Pierom, who died during the genocide. This was Chath’s first decisive step at reinventing himself and defining himself in his adoptive country. Chath boldly took the next critical step in his journey after graduating from high school in Denver. He applied to a college and pursued a degree in the world studies program at World College West in Petaluma, where he worked full-time to pay tuition and stayed with a family as a nanny in exchange for room and board. Chath took advantage of study abroad opportunities offered by the college and travelled to the former Soviet Union as the Cold War was coming to an end, taking a memorable train ride from Paris to Moscow. His horizons were expanding quickly. After graduation in 1993, Chath made his way south to San Francisco, where he “discovered his sexuality” and reveled in the city’s gay life during the early 1990s. It was at this point that Chath also started to write poetry in the spirit of Walt Whitman. He recounts this seminal period in his life in “An American Sex Education”: I write to Walt Whitman to be reincarnated as my lover. I write to Jack Kerouac to get him to come back to Lowell. I want him to know that we have crossed paths. I traveled his roads. … I am a Khmer-born American with almond-shaped eyes. I am content, I am beautiful, I like my black hair, My flat nose, my brown, mahogany skin, My lips creamed by the kisses of American dawns. My heart throbs to American lovers, close and distant, As new exotic days or nights.

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