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.