Qwo-Li Driskill and Walking with Ghosts

In class we read the poetry collection Walking with Ghosts by Qwo-Li Driskill and I found it to be extremely moving, beautiful, and powerful. The combinations of struggles that have been incorporated into each poem is amazing and offers such a vision to the reader. Qwo-Li illuminates his words with images of Native American activism, transgender and gay struggles, identity crisis's, and the idea of sovereignty--both of the land and of the body. I found each poem to be such a powerful expression of emotions and ideas that it was difficult to pick a favorite or even just two, but for the sake of analysis, I have attempted to do just that.

The poem "For Matthew" was so powerful and emotionally explosive. The reader gains a real sense of loss, confusion, and even betrayal. From my point-of-view, I saw the poem as the outpouring of grief over the death of someone we never imagined missing from our lives and the struggle to comprehend how something like this could happen. The opening lines, "I found my body collapsible, choking on your death like a small child who seeks to understand by stuffing pennies and marbles into mouth" is a perfect description of the indescribable emotion. If you've ever lost someone in your life, this is the emotion that seems to filter through those first, unimaginable moments. It's the stage before we can put anything into words or even into order. The idea of trying to make sense of such a tragedy by reverting to an early, underdeveloped stage of our lives is unique and perfect. The final lines also hold such an impact that it's impossible not to be stirred into action or to feel as Qwo-Li is feeling as he writes these lines.
"We have no more time for symbols.
We have no more time for vigils.
We have no more time..."
The idea of time is something that the human race developed for its own purpose and then has spent the time trying to figure out what time is. We have an idea that there is always more and that we are the ultimate commanders of our movement through time. But these lines reveal the anxiety and the truth that we so often seek to avoid. This truth is so often revealed to us when someone is lost. It's the idea that time is out of our control and that we can't stop it for anyone or anything. After losing someone we love, time seems to act unmercifully and marches forward without our preparation or readiness. Also, these lines emphasize people's desire to memorialize a person, the want to remove them from their skin and thus away from the ultimate, harsh truth of their reality. However, Qwo-Li addresses the fact that this isn't possible. That Matthew Shepard was a person, a person who lived and breathed just as we all do now. There isn't a moment to detach him or make him a banner of the injustices inflicted on the gay or transgender community. There's a call to action because he was human, not because he was a symbol. These lines reverberate his humanity, the fact that he lived and wasn't simply a face on a poster board. The very last line of the poem reads, "you were still alive." There's a definite emphasis on his living juxtaposed against his tragic death. His life is a reason to fight back. There's a need to fight for what he lived for before using him as an example for what he died for.

This poem harbors a lot of anger as well that I found moving and undeniably passionate. "In Seattle, 1000 lit candles, (I wanted the city to burn.)" These two lines alone pack a punch that is hard for some to deal with. Such aggression can be perceived as blind hatred or misunderstanding, but truly, this is an act of emotion and a lashing out while seeking understanding. The hatred here is directed towards the crime, not the city or people in it. It's a way of dealing with pain and devastation, to see the world burning around you is a distraction. This anger is a distraction from the piercing pain.

"For Matthew" was an extraordinary poem that moved me in such a powerful way. It speaks more than just to the community in which Matthew Shepard found his true identity, it really speaks to anyone who believes in humanity and the right for people to live their lives. Its grief and agony speaks to anyone who's lost someone in a tragedy and it calls on us to act and remember how they lived instead of just how they died. The life will give us something even more powerful to fight for.