From the Inventory of Images I Cannot Unsee

Abstract

From the Inventory of Images I Cannot Unsee is a collection of original poetry that explores Asian American diasporic families, intergenerational influences and inheritances, trauma and recovery, queerness, womanhood, and the possibilities and limits of language. The foreword is a discussion of my influences, growth, and creative process as a writer, with brief analyses of excerpts by poets Sharon Olds, Jack Gilbert, and Theodore Roethke. The collection itself is divided into three unnamed sections: first, with poems revolving around history, family-centered communities, and the onset of trauma; second, explorations of Filipino mythology as related to trauma and womanhood, and the navigation of survival; and finally, illustrations of the speaker as an adult and as a writer, reckoning with the lasting effects of trauma and discovering new aspects of her sexuality and womanhood.