A Review of Rita Wong and Fred Wah’s beholden: a poem as long as the river (TalonBooks, 2018)

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A Review of Rita Wong and Fred Wah’s beholden: a poem as long as the river (TalonBooks, 2018)
By Stephen Hong Sohn

So, I’ve been super behind on poetry reviews; there’s a ton I’ve been meaning to write up, but it’s been a crazy, crazy year, full of crazy ups and downs. The lows have been really low, and the highs have been incredibly high. In the midst of all of it, I am still making time to read poetry. The thing is: I read a lot of poetry. The trouble is that reviewing poetry is just harder. It takes more energy for me, so I find myself always a little bit backlogged even after I read and re-read full collections. Wong and Wah’s co-written, co-designed long poem was just a wonderful reading experience.

Let’s let the official site provide some context for us, shall we?: “Comprising two lines of poetic text flowing along a 114-foot-long map of the Columbia River, this powerful image-poem by acclaimed poets Fred Wah and Rita Wong presents language yearning to understand the consequences of our hydroelectric manipulation of one of North America’s largest river systems. beholden: a poem as long as the river stems from the interdisciplinary artistic research project “River Relations: A Beholder’s Share of the Columbia River,” undertaken as a response to the damming and development of the Columbia River in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon, as well as to the upcoming renegotiation of the Columbia River Treaty. Authors Fred Wah and Rita Wong spent time exploring various stretches of the river, all the way to its mouth near Astoria, Oregon. They then spent several months creating long poems along the Columbia, each searching for a language that evoked the complexities of our colonial appropriation of it. beholden was then assembled as a page-turning book that reproduces the two long poems as they respond to the meanderings of the river flowing two thousand kilometres through Canada, the United States, and the territories and reserves of Indigenous Peoples. Visual artist Nick Conbere then transferred this winding footprint into a monumental, 114-foot horizontal banner. beholden: a poem as long as the river “reads” the geographic, historical, political, and social dimensions of the Columbia River, literally and figuratively, proposing two contrasting kinds of attention. As both a stand-alone poem and an accompanying piece to the visual installation exhibited at various galleries, beholden represents a vital contribution to a larger dialogue around the river through visual art, writing, and public engagement.”

One of the elements that you lose directly from the reading experience is the size and scope of the 114-foot horizontal banner. This poem is in some sense a kind of palimpsest in that it is a different, perhaps a revision, of another cultural production. The multimedia installation could of course perhaps be read as a separate work altogether (especially given the authorship status of the visual artistry of the work). Even in the context of the printed page, the collaborative element was fascinating, as two long, unbroken (for the most part, besides the problem of pagination and the occasional entrapment of words as they crashed into each other, as multiple currents in the poetic system flowed together) poetic lines mediate not only the longer history of the river, but its vital impact on communities, both human and otherwise.

One of the most crucial paratexts for beholden is the dialogue between Wah and Wong that appears just after the long poem ends. The conversation is fascinating because it makes clear the intent behind the construction of the poem, its lengthier germination, its political influences, and aesthetic aspirations. Wong’s prognostications, in particular, are depressing, because she comes to wonder about whether or not there will be the right kinds of readers for the works that she, and others like her, produce. Wong and Wah have produced something that exists at the crucial juncture between activist rhetoric and avant-grade experimentation. The juxtaposition is what may prove to be a harder sell amongst general reading publics, who need to read poetic works such as this one.

The other element that I applaud is Wong and Wah’s willingness to delve into indigenous histories and cultures, well aware that their location of speaking cannot ultimately stand for native voices. The risk they take is something that Trinh T. Minh-ha’s calls “speaking nearby,” which is an attempt to avoid appropriative approaches to representation while still voicing concerns that affect particular groups and communities with whom one might not necessarily have a direct affiliation. It is in this sense that we should this productive, politically grounded, and aesthetically inventive work. We can also look yet again to Canada (and their amazing independent presses) for pushing the bounds of both representation and social justice issues, as they are depicted in print realms.

Buy the Book Here.

Review Author: Review Editor: Gnei Soraya Zarook

If you have any questions or want us to consider your book for review, please don’t hesitate to contact us via email!
Prof. Stephen Hong Sohn at ssohnucr@gmail.com
Gnei Soraya Zarook, PhD Student in English, at gzaro001@ucr.edu

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