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The Woman of

Water Dreams

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Ryka Aoki

  • Poet/Professor who teaches English at Santa Monica and gender studies at Antioch University
  • While she writes about being trans, she strives to write for everyone
  • She sure can write about the frustrations of being trans!

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Background

  • This poem is from Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul
  • Second part of six
  • Poetry class from El Camino
  • Had to make similar presentation
  • Inspired me to write an homage in my notes app which I cleaned up for a class

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Transgender Day of Remembrance

  • November 20th
  • Rita Hester
  • To memorialize those murdered as a result of transphobia
  • Also to draw attention to continued violence against trans people

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With another November,

the names of trans people

change color and fall.

​

Mispronounced, sainted,

ceded to anonymous candles,

anonymous flame.

​

Someone will pledge money.

Someone will start singing.

​

Some inspired someone will say,

“I think all hatred is bad!

Why can’t life just be good

for everyone?”

​

​

Past each favorite cousin,

each favorite movie,

each crisp new résumé…

Past each broken heel

​

fall wax and remembrance

just for a moment

still warm to the touch.

​

“She was fierce.”

“An angel on earth.”

“Enchanting.”

​

I smell carne asada,

hear the #4 bus.

​

​

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The hole in my heart murmurs yes,

yes, yes…

Stunted fathers. Neglected boys.

Cocktails of hormones,

in stressed-altered wombs.

​

Healing the village,

speaking with the dead.

Dancing to the heavens

for fortune and rain.

​

Blessed goddesses, prophets,

​

​

​

​

mermaids in rainbow

flags and almost-

tenure-track in the new

Queer Studies Department.

​

Teeth kicked out, jawbones foot-

stomped into sidewalks.

​

False lashes and fables

entrance another’s ever after.

Lace and illusion entangle the bedpost,

​

as I rattle my vanity

for foundation, concealer,

the face to a mispronounced name.

​

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names That fall like leaves

“

  • Autumn imagery
  • Natural imagery highlights a frequency of deaths
    • Resignation
    • Enjambment emphasizes change from life to death as a “natural” process

With another November,

the names of trans people

change color and fall.

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Visibility in candlelight

“

  • Critical of resignation
  • “Someone will”
    • Each person is unique.
    • This circumstance is not.

Mispronounced, sainted,

ceded to anonymous candles,

anonymous flame.

​

Someone will pledge money.

Someone will start singing.

​

Some inspired someone will say,

“I think all hatred is bad!

Why can’t life just be good

for everyone?”

​

​

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memories dripping like wax

“

  • Repetition
    • Emphasizes frequency
    • No particular association in memories, good or bad
  • Memories as Wax
    • Enjambment + stanza break connects the two
    • Enjambment emphasizes change from life to death as a “natural” process

Past each favorite cousin,

each favorite movie,

each crisp new résumé…

Past each broken heel

​

fall wax and remembrance

just for a moment

still warm to the touch.

​

​

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Reality Duality

“

  • Uplifting, Aspirational
    • Enjambment of escalating positivity
  • Contrast with “Reality”
    • Similar line break with “almost-tenure” and “foot-stomped”

Blessed goddesses, prophets,

mermaids in rainbow

flags and almost-

tenure-track in the new

Queer Studies Department.

​

Teeth kicked out, jawbones foot-

stomped into sidewalks.

​

​

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Allusion to illusion

“

  • Falseness/Illusion
    • Dysphoria
  • Ultimately Uplifting
    • Self-made image in spite of harsh reality
    • Progress is still being made

False lashes and fables

entrance another’s ever after.

Lace and illusion entangle the bedpost,

​

as I rattle my vanity

for foundation, concealer,

the face to a mispronounced name.

​

​

​

​

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Overall

“

  • Expresses complicated feelings toward multiple subjects
    • The day itself
    • Society at large
    • Being transgender
  • Presents the good with the bad
    • As hard as things are now, there’s ultimately no regrets

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Works Cited

Aoki, Ryka. Why Dust Shall Never Settle Upon This Soul. Biyuti Publishing, 2015.

Transgender Day of Remembrance, Human Rights Campaign, �https://web.archive.org/web/20131126173312/http://www.hrc.org/campaigns/transgender-day-remembrance.

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