Category Archives: Memory of a Girl

“What is the boundary between human and animal?”

Memory of a Girl (Backbone Press, 2016)

Could you share with us a representative or pivotal poem from your chapbook? Perhaps something that introduces the work of the chapbook, or that invites the reader into the world of the chapbook?

Why did you choose this poem?

I chose “Butchering” because it throws the reader into the central question and tension of the chapbook: do we lose our “selves” when we lose our memories? This question swirls around me throughout the autobiographical, narrative book, while I struggle to come to terms with the reality of my Japanese grandmother’s memory loss, and the terrifying possibility of losing my own mind. In describing the killing of a hen, and linking it to our own eventual powerlessness over our bodies and minds, “Butchering” hints at a deeper question, too, that resurfaces in the poems…