Writer's block - a poem by Emelihter Kihleng

This month is nearing its end and this is the first blogpost of the month. It has, in other words, been a very hectic month, but hectic in various ways. The first week passed by in a frantic writing process which saw the finishing of the first half of the thesis chapter on which I am currently working. The second week was spent in Norway during the Easter holiday. But now that I have returned from home and I am once again back at the office, I can turn my attention to this blog again, since my brain is neither too narrowly focussed, nor too relaxed to write new posts.

As a start for the April blogposts, I present to you a poem by Emelihter Kihleng, a poet from the Federation of Micronesia. I have a particular interest in geographical localities that are peripheral to my own cultural standing, and which are small - particularly so if they are islands, for reasons I do not entirely comprehend myself. Therefore, I was very happy to discover Emelihter Kihleng and her first collection of poems. The collection is titled My Urohs. An urohs is a long skirt worn by Micronesian women, and this is a recurring feature of identity marking in Kihleng's collection, a collection in which matters of identity are dealt with in several - and sometimes gripping - ways.

For this blogpost, however, I give you a poem which, as the title shows, deals with writer's block, a suitable way to mark the resuming of activity here on this blog.


Writer's block

I'm finally sitting down to write a poem
Is it the heat?
the quiet,
not a tree stirring,
a single leaf falls from the mahi

the house darkens
the tin roof holds its breath
rain pounds the cement
and everyone in Kolonia sighs
steam rising from the pavement

what is it about this place?


(Published in My Urohs, Kahuaomanoa Press, Honolulu, 2008)