About the Poems - JJN
About the Poems
by Jane Joritz-Nakagawa These poems are part of a longer work titled "notational." In the words of poet Trane DeVore, in this work "the dislocations of expat experience become general dislocations of living in capitalist society." I explore a number of themes but most especially the theme of isolation (and death, even if "just" a social — or moral — death). "notational" began as a chapbook length work that started out with "lost" as its central concept—the lost being innocence, sanity, humanity, ethics, money, health, the rainforest...I believe I wanted to capture the sense of being lost, a place real or imagined where a map could be of no use, though a longing for a guide (any guide) may persist.