“Becoming Horizon,” “Gardeners,” and “Hanahaki” by Amanda Grace Shu appeared in Issue 39 and can be found here.
We’d love to hear more about this set of poetry.
Both “Hanahaki” and “Gardeners” were written as responses to the deaths of close family members, at very different stages of my personal grieving processes for each. Both involve the botanical world, plants as living-and-dying things, but while in “Gardeners” they frame a space of rest and contemplation, in “Hanahaki” they quite literally cause breathlessness—flowers are an infestation of the lungs, a restriction of the chest that prevents both the dying person and the speaker from moving on. More on “Hanahaki” later…
I workshopped “Gardeners” in my MFA class last spring, then revised it and read it aloud at my grandmother’s funeral. I was struck by how differently it was received on a literary level compared to a personal one. In both contexts, it resonated, but while my classmates focused on the questions raised about the nature of God, the people who knew and loved my grandmother in life, as I did, were amused at how true her imagined character was captured. Those who remembered Grandma’s feud with the infamous bunny were also tickled pink by the idea of their continued rivalry in the great beyond.
“Becoming Horizon” was inspired by a news headline, which I used as an epigraph. I was struck by sadness at the thought of these two frogs, so in love that they brought not just rain but a whole deluge, being separated. Writing the poem also allowed me to do something else that I love: researching obscure bits of trivia to incorporate, including ancient Vedic myths, Hindu wedding traditions, and what the native frogs of Madya Pradesh look like during mating season (delightfully colorful).
What was the most difficult part of this set?
With “Hanahaki,” it was definitely the emotional issues I was working through by writing the poem. I knew I wanted to explore the sinister undercurrent to the hanahaki fanfiction trope, in that the infected person dies if their love is never requited. This puts the guilt of their death on the other person, who did not love them enough to save their life. But thinking about the role that guilt has played in my own grief was incredibly hard, because no amount of love was ever going to be enough. I knew on an intellectual level that I had to absolve myself, but I just couldn’t get myself there emotionally. The poem—and the encouraging responses it has received—has done a lot to help me heal. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned about grief, it’s that it’s never done. It just takes on new forms.
Recommend a book for us which was published within the last decade.
This Is How You Lose the Time War, by Amar El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. I read this novella in a single day and was engrossed by its perfect blend of poetic imagery, speculative worldbuilding, and the relationship between the two narrators. Also, as those who know me are well aware, I’m a sucker for any queer relationship so strong it changes the fabric of spacetime.
If you could have a drink with any living author, who would it be? Why?
Part of me feels like I ought to name a poet, but in my heart, it has to be Ted Chiang. The way he writes about language in his stories is so innovative, and I am in awe at how closely the structure of his prose, down to the level of word and sentence, entwines itself with the inherent themes of each story. He really is a master of speculative writing.
What are you working on now? What’s next?
I’ve just completed and submitted my MFA thesis manuscript, Myth and Marrow—a poetry collection centered around world mythology and themes of creation, life, death, and the stories that shape our identities. As for what’s next? Graduation and hopefully some rest. I feel as if I’ve just exorcised a spirit from my body.
Our thanks to Amanda for taking the time to answer a few questions and share this story. Read “Becoming Horizon,” “Gardeners,” and “Hanahaki” here: https://www.sequestrum.org/three-poems-by-amanda-grace-shu.
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Amanda Grace Shu is a biracial Asian-American poet and fiction writer, and a recent MFA graduate from Sarah Lawrence College. Her poetry has been published in The American Journal of Poetry, Mass Poetry’s Hard Work of Hope series, and Kaleidoscope, and her fiction in Daily Science Fiction. A lover of language and all its chaotic, inventive, and endlessly changing beauty, she believes that words can build worlds both fantastical and familiar, and that creative writing is a powerful empathetic act through which we come to truly understand one another. She also obsesses over cats, writes trivia games, and names her pens after silly puns. Read more at amandagraceshu.com.