The Music We Forget is Music

This FEELed Note is part of our occasional series featuring outstanding feelz from undergraduate students.

When we think of a dictionary, we tend to envision a collection of words with given definitions that have been widely agreed upon. We think of “universal” understandings or categorizations of a particular something, allowing us to communicate quickly and accurately with one another.

Definitions, to me, are confining and inherently arbitrary. I have felt words outgrow and shift in their definitions, often unnoticeably or only obvious in hindsight. In my mind’s dictionary, I occasionally find definitions to no longer feel true—having been remoulded by my experiences and the systems I find myself a part of, ebbing and flowing with my ever-expanding perspective. The fluidity of the human relationship to language frequently surfaces in the work of poet and activist Rita Wong, particularly in her poem titled “A Magical Dictionary from bitumen to sunlight.”

In this poem, Wong’s “magical” dictionary redefines words through feeling and memory.

Her awareness of the human tendency to tailor language to our liking becomes especially evident in this poem, where she reimagines the meanings of words through her own personal lens. The poem takes form as a list of words—such as ceremony, bitumen, ancestors, and cadence—matched with short definitions offering a glimpse into the author’s emotional, political and ecological relationship to each word:

crushed

: pressing so hard as to lose one’s own shape

: tiny privatized homes the size of skulls or microchips relying on rare earth across continents

: what capitalism has executed upon forests

(p.41)

Each term throughout is accompanied by a similar list of unique definitions, some more straightforward or literal than others. She tends to begin with a play on a common definition of the given word, but as the eye moves down, the definitions expand. With the word crushed, she leads with the meaning many would tie to the word—the “literal” meaning, so to speak. From there, the definitions become more layered: specific, yet simultaneously abstract. Understanding this pattern allowed me to recognize and unpack my preconceived notions of each word, to then utilize them as keys to unlocking new perceptions of the world around me.

While reading this poem, Stacy Alaimo’s concept of transcorporeality came to mind and stuck at the forefront of my interpretations. This concept points to the fact that our bodies are not at all separate from our environments. That is to say, we are constantly in exchange with what surrounds us: the air we breathe, the water we drink and bathe in, the ground we walk on, those we interact with. Regardless of the human struggle to separate ourselves as distinct, self-contained beings, we are inextricably connected to everything around us. This idea is evident in Wong’s description of bitumen:

: buried ancestors, unearthed & burned to expand the ocean

: pitched sacrifice zone wherever it bubbles up, hellishly excavated

(p.42)

This excerpt conjured up a vivid image of fossil fuel pollutants seeping into bodies, extractivism’s permanent scars on the land, both material and biological. “Buried ancestors” is a reminder to us that fossil fuels are not as separate from us as we like to believe—they are the past versions of ourselves, lingering in our breath, our bloodstreams, our waterways, our climate. These histories are carried in our bodies. They are a part of us. In a way, they are us.

Recognizing bitumen as akin to ourselves means recognizing everything as our kin—plants, animals, water, minerals, the sky. My understanding of this began to expand when a particular line in the following stanza summoned an incredible, immersive vision of my homeland:

ceremony

: shaping one’s gestures to honour what has not been lost, just buried

: the music we forget is music

(p. 42)

The line “the music that we forget is music” transported me home the second I read it. I could hear the lapping of waves under my paddleboard, the rustling spruce, the burble of whitefish surfacing for a midnight snack, the loons yodel ricocheting off every tree around me, as it has for hundreds of years.

This experience was so profound that I was brought to tears. I realized in that moment that these very sounds are my kin. They live within me, intertwined with my heartstrings. I had never considered ceremony as something other than a sort of ritual—though, in a sense, that is exactly what listening is. We ground ourselves in familiar sounds: music, laughter, the voices of those we love. I could feel the sounds embrace and call me home from thousands of kilometres away. This line alone proved to me how truly magical this dictionary really is. What a gift it is to feel such closeness to my ancestors—the loon, the spruce, the lake— through the words of another.

Reading this poem and the process of writing this reflection shifted my view on many things, but most prominently is my new understanding of kinship. I have always thought of myself to be quite connected to the more-than-human, however, I never considered the non-physical beings I am in relation with. Language, sounds, feelings, music—I now realize that I am as akin to them as I am to those I consider my family. The sounds of my ancestors swim underneath my skin alongside those sacrificed for my being here. Kinship is not always visible.

I do not have all of the answers for the landslide of emotions this poem unleashed in me, but I think that is the point. Experiencing art does not have to mean confining significance into neat definitions and understandings, it can mean reimagining and remembering our own.

References

Kuznetski, J., & Alaimo, S. (2020). Transcorporeality: an interview with Stacy Alaimo. Ecozon@: European Journal of Literature, Culture and Environment, 11(2), 137-146.

Wong, R. (2015). “A Magical Dictionary from bitumen to sunlight.” Undercurrent. Gibsons, Nightwood Editions. 41-43.

Jordyn Sanche (she/her) is an undergraduate student in UBCO’s sustainability program concentrating in environmental humanities. Originally from a small community in northern Manitoba, Jordyn resides and studies in the unceded and traditional territory of the Syilx Okanagan people. An aspiring writer and student of the Earth, Jordyn wants to bridge her passion for expression with her strong sense of environmental and social justice through language, art, and connection.