Graduation
"Graduation" is another poem by Koleka Putuma from her anthology Collective Amnesia. This poem deals with growing up and "graduating" from life as a black, queer womxn.
Putuma describes this "graduation" leaving your parents' nest. It is a statement, something that WILL happen at one point or another. Because this is framed as a factual statement, the rest can also be interpreted as stated facts. These facts of "graduating" includes realizing that traditions from the speaker's childhood do not fit her own, personal narrative, the speaker is expected to support her family financially, but it is not always possible as she is trying to build her own life. This act of contributing financially will earn her the title of "adult" in the family.
But this title is false. The speaker "slips into old roles". She hides things she does not want them to see or know, perhaps her sexuality as they may not be accepting of it. When she and her mother are chopping onions, her mother asks difficult question. "Chopping onions" is a metaphor for asking these difficult questions or talking about painful things. Neither her nor her mother can do this without crying.
The final stanza of the poem perhaps highlights most poignantly the differences between the speaker and her family, but "both are equally valid".
But this title is false. The speaker "slips into old roles". She hides things she does not want them to see or know, perhaps her sexuality as they may not be accepting of it. When she and her mother are chopping onions, her mother asks difficult question. "Chopping onions" is a metaphor for asking these difficult questions or talking about painful things. Neither her nor her mother can do this without crying.
"When your mother asks
Where you left the things she gave you
You will want to say, I am unlearning them"The speaker's mother wants to know why she doesn't practice the traditions (the memories?) she inherited from her parents. She is unlearning them, for those "things" do not represent who she is, they may even hurt her identity. The speaker muses that maybe unlearning should be the new "inherited memory", it would certainly make "chopping onions" obsolete and make comforting each other easier.
The final stanza of the poem perhaps highlights most poignantly the differences between the speaker and her family, but "both are equally valid".
"And
Then
You will realize
That
Coming home
And
Going home
Do not mean the same thing"Right through she keeps the future tense, as if predicting, as if stating exactly what is going to happen. Perhaps because even this journey is an inherited one.
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