Longing for the Mother Tongue

Joseph Farley

Longing for the Mother Tongue

Lips move
but the ears
do not hear
the sounds
they long for,
familiar tones
syllables,
the voice of
the mother tongue.

Far from home
so long since
I have spoken
with someone
who will listen,
with someone
who will understand.

Stammering idiot
babbling nonsense
to the locals,
they cannot understand
my words.
I cannot understand
theirs.
All we can do
is stumble over
each other’s languages.
Miscommunication
more frequent
than honest exchange
of information.

The sun falls.
Its sound
is a familiar thud.
The feel of the wind
reminds me of home.
Clouds look the same
but my hometown
lacks the mountains.

Some buildings
could have been built
anywhere,
universal structures
of steel and glass
pretty in their own way
but do not speak of place.
The old houses
in the countryside
are more interesting
with their red or green tiles,
doorways for chickens
and occasional dragons
gracing the corners of roofs.
They make it clear
that I am elsewhere.
They remind me
I am not at home,
away from my center,
my source,
my roots.

After so long away
I need to touch base again,
become grounded,
feel the comfort
of a way of living
that is my own,
see faces I remember,
hear voices I know,
drown in vocabulary
seasoned with Spanish,
Italian, Yiddish,
Chinese, Polish,
revel in the words
I have missed,
the language
of the street corners
and the markets
that is my
mother tongue.

ISBN 1-59661-148-0
31 pages/$9

If language is a common bond between diverse peoples, conversely, language can also be a gulf separating men from themselves. In his new book, Joseph Farley explores the great divide between two vastly different cultures: the American and the Chinese. The poems adroitly examine the isolation a foreigner feels in a largely, alien land. His poignant "Eye of the Beholder" contrasts the native denial with regard to the brutality of Tiananmen Square with his American sensibility of outrage and horror. And yet, despite all our innate separateness, somehow, we manage to come together, longing for the native tongue. --Alan Catlin

Say one day you wake to find yourself a stranger in a strange land, a curiosity, golden haired, among a sea of black hair, stripped of all comfort, alone with a language no one else understands. Joseph Farley has long been at ease gallivanting through the margins, but this suite of poems takes him more than a few lengthy strides across the border and into a land of beauty and uncertainty—much to our delight. --Louis McKee

Joseph Farley in Longing for the Mother Tongue transports us to the Jiangxi Province in China, where he spent an extensive sojourn and where not much more than the sun setting, the feel of wind, and comfort of clouds were familiar. In sparse words, haiku-like images, and sharp insight, he shares with us the joys and challenges of the Chinese landscape and people and of being an American in a non-English–speaking culture. Readers who have traveled to such places will say, "Yes, this is exactly how it is," and those who haven't will feel as though they have after reading this fine and thought-provoking collection --Ellaraine Lockie

Joseph Farley received a B.A. from St. Joseph's University and an M.A. from Temple University. He edited The Axe Factory Review for 24 years. He is the author of a short story collection, For the Birds. His poetry books include Suckers and The True Color of You.

Reviewed in Verse Wisconson Online by Karla Huston
http://versewisconsin.org/Issue106/reviews106/farley.html

Language is one of the most unifying elements of culture. No wonder immigrants grieve so to give it up. Without the ability to speak or to understand, an individual is at a deep disadvantage, shut out of the most elemental ways of communicating. Language or lack of it speaks in other ways. In Sandra Cisneros’ novel House on Mango Street, Mamacita says, “No speak English,” because it is easier than saying, “I don’t understand.” In Ernest J. Gaines, A Lesson Before Dying, Miss Emma asks the rich plantation owner to intercede between the sheriff and her, saying, “I need you to speak for me” because she hasn’t the words or stature to speak for herself.

In this small volume of poems, Joseph Farley, long-time editor/publisher of Axe Factory Review and Cynic Press, speaks of the barriers language and culture erect, the joys and frustrations of straddling the border between two cultures, his wife’s, his own, and their son who will live in both:

my son stands in two worlds
his legs span oceans
his arms wrap the globe

Far from home
with no one
who spoke my tongue
I was a unique
exhibition,
a stranger with
“jintofa”
golden hair …
…
Lao Wai Po
was ninety.
Her age demanded
respect.
She kept talking
until the men
lowered their pick-axes,
their fists …
…
I thought I must be
very ugly
to bring on these
cold and ugly looks.

… Breaking the code of language offers metaphoric barriers as well. How does a white, Irish Catholic man from the U.S. understand the differences in child rearing, for example, as he witnesses a kid torture chickens before they are butchered to be eaten for the next meal? The parents, elders, adults—none correct or stop the child. “[M]ind your own business,” his wife says as he questions this behavior and later, he wonders if the kid has grown up, “inflicting pain on other things.”

In another poem, the narrator recalls seeing the results of the crushed insurrection at Tienanman Square, the bandaged heads, the still armed soldiers on every corner. When he asks, his wife answers that she has seen nothing. He doesn’t understand, so close to the uprising, that her language has been muted by fear. Years later, that revolutionary spirit has been replaced by consumerism and ignorance.

Longing for the Mother Tongue
Imagine a poet who has lost words. Who finds himself in a place where his own language has no meaning and he is blocked in communicating with those around him, even those he loves. Listen to Joseph Farley, perplexed in "Welcome to Ji'An"

I thought I must be
very ugly
to bring on these
cold and ugly looks.

In the title poem, "Longing for the Mother Tongue," the speaker finds

All we can do
is stumble over
each other's languages.

Farley is a poet who uses plain speech to show us the sublime

and one swallow
skimming across
pale green water,
catching a sip in flight.

"Fish Pond, Ji’An, Jiangxi Province.") This is not his world. Not quite. But it is in part his sons' world, their mother's world, and he finds himself

seeing the moon
huge and full
among constellations I had never seen.

But it is also a world in transition, a China that is passing away, where

Instead of
the singing of frogs
the croaking
of a hundred television sets
fills the night air.

("The Songs the Frogs Sang.") We cannot help but think of Xu Juan, who is at home here, as the poet speaks of Chang 'Er:

Soon you will return
to heaven,
become again
a cold object,
distant and
distaining
of men who
work the soil
or plow paper
with fox tail brush
and fresh ground ink.

But the moon goddess's world is changing, it is just past the time of tanks in Tienanmen Square, and she must avert her eyes from brutality and injustice. And so, in "The Eye of the Beholder,"

Money makes things good,
or so it seems,
and history is a dusty book
sitting on a shelf.
Everyone knows it is there,
but no one wants
to take it down
and read it out loud.

And so East Meets West,

My son stands in two worlds
his legs span oceans
his arms wrap the globe.

Xu and Farley's children, like mine, are Hapa (Half Asian People): other, and they are something new on this earth.

children are the point
where east and west meet.