“What would you do?” - Aimee Nezhukumatathil, “Dear Amy Nehzooukammyatootill,”1
Poem for Farid
My name means friendship I say but later I realize I got it wrong. I am named for that Hebrew mother the one who binds bends blind and weary wills to her own who defines for whom the words are spoken.
Unique you say in Persian and I stumble at the sound afraid to seek the spelling having asked before already also dumb, tied tongue, at your other name.
At home I practice the sound of my new favorite poet to tell everyone about her words her way of seeing the world. When I open my mouth syllables in knots all I can do is hold the book aloft and point to her name. Embarrassed
I feel every ounce of my blank whiteness a wall between us strangers to each other on this sidewalk in our shared town. How to say My heart is far ahead of my tongue. How to know what are the words for I see you.
Poet’s note: This poem is after an actual interaction that happened on a Saturday morning outside the Lynchburg Community Market, across Main Street from the White Hart Cafe and Bailey’s Hardware. If you spend any amount of time downtown, you know that social interactions are up for grabs; anything can happen! . . . like talking poetry with the person administering a city survey. On that particular day, rich conversation with a man named Farid met with the realization that my tongue couldn’t say what I wanted to articulate: the sound of his name, loving in its correctness.
I lament the ways my privilege has kept me from telling others that I see them. I celebrate the hope of overcoming self-serving constraints—not for myself, but for the souls I rub alongside as I walk through life in this city.
And in case you’re wondering, this is the book I was reading:
Image: front cover of Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s book World of Wonders
In the comments below the poem linked here, Nezhukumatathil talks about what it felt like as a child in a classroom, waiting for the teacher to mispronounce, balk at, or make fun of her name. And in this video, she reads aloud a poem she wrote after a U.S. representative asked an Asian American to choose a more easily pronounceable last name.
