ABANDONED GEOGRAPHY

she’s been in this silence for a long time
too many journeys to nowhere
her body her only home

the absence continues
lingers in every doorway
every footpath

the nor’wester whizzes through
all the gaps left unwritten on the body
of the aching land

released from the contested space
of re-arrivals she stands

both asleep and awake
no longer dreaming

only a trace of a woman
in abandoned geography

.

© Sugu, Pillay
Published in Flaubert’s Drum (Interactive Press) 2012

Reproduced here with permission

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About the Poem:

Today, September 4, is the second anniversary of the 7.1 earthquake in 2010 that first shook the city of Christchurch and its environs—and although the 6.3 earthquake of February 22, 2011 was the one that killed 185 people and comprehensively destroyed the central city and large parts of the eastern suburbs, September 4, 2010 remains a significant event.

So when I discussed a Tuesday Poem feature with Sugu Pillay, to celebrate the release of her poetry collection Flaubert’s Drum (launched at the Christchurch Writers’ Festival this past weekend) and she sent sent me a selection that included this poem, Abandoned Geography—well, given the date, it just had to be “the one.” I also feel it complements David Eggleton’s Christchurch Gothic from last week—a poem of the way we were “before”, here in Christchurch—very nicely.

It’s not just about complementarity and remembering September 4, however: I believe this is a very strong poem in its own right. Abandoned Geography uses simple, spare langauge to capture the magnitude of the event for the individual person caught up in, and at least partially overwhelmed by, the disaster’s enormity.

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About the Poet:

Born and raised in Malaysia, Sugu Pillay has postgraduate degrees from Victoria University of Wellington and the University of London. A trained teacher of ESL/ESOL, she has taught in Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Christchurch. Awarded a Creative New Zealand Grant (1997), she completed her collection of short fiction, The Chandrasekhar Limit and other stories, published by the Writers Group, Auckland in 2002. In 2009, her play, Serendipity, premiered in Wellington. Her second play, Salaam Pukekohe, was co-winner of Playmarket’s 2010 Write Out Loud script development programme. Flaubert’s Drum (previous title: In Medias Res) highly commended in ‘IP Picks Best Poetry 2012’, is a collection of mostly published poems from 1995 to 2012. A former resident of Christchurch, Sugu now lives in Wellington.

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