Escape from the Old Country

By Adrienne Su b. 1967 Adrienne Su

I never had to make one,

no sickening weeks by ocean,

no waiting for the aerogrammes

that gradually ceased to come.

Spent the babysitting money

on novels, shoes, and movies,

yet the neighborhood stayed empty.

It had nothing to do with a journey

not undertaken, not with dialect,

nor with a land that waited

to be rediscovered, then rejected.

As acid rain collected

above the suburban hills, I tried

to imagine being nothing, tried

to be able to claim, “I have

no culture,” and be believed.

Yet the land occupies the person

even as the semblance of freedom

invites a kind of recklessness.

Tradition, unobserved, unasked,

hangs on tight; ancestors roam

into reverie, interfering at the most

awkward moments, first flirtations,

in doorways and dressing rooms—

But of course. Here in America,

no one escapes. In the end, each traveler

returns to the town where, everyone

knew, she hadn’t even been born.

Source: Sanctuary (Manic D Press, 2006)

Biography

Raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Su earned a BA from Radcliffe College of Harvard University and an MFA from the University of Virginia. She is the author of the poetry collections Middle Kingdom (1997), Sanctuary (2006), and Having None of It (2009). Her awards include a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and residencies at the Fine Arts Works Center and The Frost Place.

Commenting on her work for the National Endowment . . .

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