Drawing Blood (or On My Mother's Toes)

MIXED ASIAN MEDIA - JANUARY 26, 2022

 

Friend of MAM, Hannah Bailey has released a book of poems, Drawing Blood (or On My Mother’s Toes). Born in Melbourne, Hannah is an Australian/Filipino artist whose passion for performing led her to New York City, where she is now based. Below, she’s shared some insight into the development of her work, as well as selected poems from the book, “I Call My Lola” and “Woman.”

Drawing Blood (or On My Mother’s Toes) can be ordered HERE.

“Born out of yearning to connect with my family and heritage from across the ocean during the pandemic, my first collection of poems Drawing Blood (or On My Mother’s Toes) explores themes of bloodline, femininity, homesickness (and home sickness), loss, hope, and an existence within the cracks and veins of colliding cultures.

For longer than I can remember, I felt a conflict between the Filipino and Australian sides of who I am — it has seemed almost impossible to embrace both simultaneously. More recently I’ve begun to understand the ways in which one cannot exist without the other, and how together they create an identity that is whole. This notion is also reflected in my residing in two places — New York and Australia, and poses questions of home and belonging daily.

Writing has become increasingly the backbone of all the other art I create and perform, and through this I have understood more completely just how fundamental the labor of truth seeking is to my work. A large part of this has been an acceptance of self; forgiving and honoring the place I am in, wherever and whenever I put pen to paper (or my fingers to a guitar, or my body in space). Particularly throughout this past year, the highs have been joyous – euphoric even, and the lows deeply, intrinsically painful. The planes on which my internal life exists are broad and ever changing, and learning to invite each into my work has been a profoundly transformative and cathartic experience. Many of the poems enclosed here mediate on this as an act of emergence.

As I wade through the life-long undertaking of collecting and collating the fragments of my scattered identity, my work and words become increasingly the stitching. In many ways, these poems seek to marry the many opposing truths that exist within me, and within the world I see. The use of couplets, double poems, and thematic augmentation carry this idea through Drawing Blood (or On My Mother’s Toes), and attempt the bringing together of countless dualities.”

— Hanna Bailey

 

I CALL MY LOLA

She answers on the fifth ring

Apologizing for unbrushed hair

Her unmade face

Straining towards the screen

She beams my name

Stretching the vowels

As if trying to hold them in the air

Longer than anyone should

She is beautiful

She tells me she is reading the letter I sent slowly

She tells me about foods my blood knows

Foods I’ve never held on my tongue

Bihod and balut and bulalo

She tells me she likes the new president

She tells me I am pretty

My Lola asks, once again, if I believe in God

Tender hope clinging to her cheeks

She is soft, pure as silk and

I cannot forsake her

I tell her

Yes

I tell her of afternoon light

Sweeping across the pier

I tell her of snow

I tell her of the ocean in August

I tell her of hot water on

Cold hands

I tell her of sand

And of rain

And of the autumn forest

I tell her of sunrise

I tell her of long winter shadows

I tell her of music at night

And the mosaics in the museum

And the steaming tea

And the crescent moon

And the endless sky

And the sound of quiet

And I tell her again of light

of light

of light.

My Lola smiles

She does not believe me

This time, there is no need.

WOMAN

If I trace with my fingertip every inch of me

my hand,

a replica of my mother’s, would eventually find my feet then ground

then root.

If I trace with blood

every inch of my womanhood

my root,

an extension of my mother’s,

would weave its way to a land I cannot navigate and bury there

a seed.

If I study my women twelve of nineteen four of seven

one of four

I see

Volcanic ladies

— eruption and reconcile

a cycle,

bold in unapologetic certainty

they form a path farther than my gaze and bleed through

every inch of me

whether I want it or not,

settle under my feet

so I can stand,

spill over into my mouth

and mould my words

so I can speak,

hide themselves between my bamboo bones and set off sparks

so I can start fires.

If I trace the ground

every inch

until my fingertip finds root and follow it across oceans farther than my gaze

I find them

buried in my dusty skin

the seed throbs

bleeds

and reveals itself

Woman.

Find out more about Hannah at hannahadelebailey.com,

on IG @hannahadelebailey, and on Twitter @HanAdeleBailey.