Tag Archives: terracentric

Week 15: Stuck at the Bottom

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I really enjoyed reading Stephanie Burt’s poem, We Are Mermaids. The poem is ripe with brilliant imagery and metaphor that do a great deal to describe the internal struggle of being a transgender person.

The ocean is presented almost like a landscape in the poem, which hones in on terracentric language to describe those who subscribe to beliefs and lifestyles they are familiar or comfortable with. The full potential of the waters between the surface and the ocean floor are ignored, with the speaker often reassuring the reader that they do not have to leave the water they are comfortable in.

“You can spend your life benthic, or brackish,

subsisting and even thriving where a fingertip

comes away saline and still refreshing,

exploring the estuary, the submerged lip

and congeries of overlapping shores

on the green-black water, the harbor, the bay.” (Burt Pg. 1-2, 24-29)

This is followed by the sentiment that it’s okay to be scared to go into the vast, open ocean; the rest of us will be all right out here.

I think this poem has two target audiences. One is transgender people who are afraid to embrace their true identity – in which case the poem is a kind and welcoming invitation to a better, more belonging life. The other is people who are transphobic and who are choosing to keep out of the issue of transgender rights. Either way, the poem paints the ocean (or this more free way of living, unrestricted by the rules and patterns of the land) as a sanctuary thats in reach and ready for you to embrace it.

Embracing the mermaid as a symbol of transgender people is a beautiful way of showing someone who comes from the constraints of land (society) and has embraced the water and turned it into their home (identity). This was a really powerful piece to end the semester with.

Carry Us Home

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In watching the stop motion short film for this week’s reading, I found the video to be quite pleasant to watch, the colors in the film were very soothing and comforting. The story being told is of African Slaves traveling the middle passage via ship. On this slave ship, there is a point in which the slaves, the majority being pregnant women are thrown into the Ocean, where they are saved by Omambala and turned into mermaids. Their children are soon born of seashell clams. The title of this film, “The Water Will Carry Us Home,” stood out to me. In retrospect, everyone has their perception and definition of “home,” to some people, it is their own house, for others, it can be their hometown or where they grew up. The title using the word home led me to the question: Is the Ocean our home? For many indigenous cultures theirorigin stories begin in the water. Another indigenous origin story I can think of is Turtle Island. In indigenous North American Folklore, their origin story consists of a turtle who holds the world on its back. This being the second origin story I’ve consumed, it has led me to believe why there is a difference in origin beliefs. If so many indigenous cultures share beliefs in coming or beginning in the ocean, where and why did Christians believe in something completely different?

Going back to the language of home, it kind of was comforting to me that Home might be the Ocean. Although it can be scary for some to think about, for most people who enjoy the Ocean and the beach, it was a nice thought to have. Before this video, if I were to think of home I would probably think of a concert place, this short film allowed me to shift my terra-centric form of thinking in regards to what I consider and call my “home.”