This week, I read “Sans Papiers” by Lê Thi Diem Thúy. In this poem, I noticed a lot of visual and emotional imagery. I obviously don’t know for certain the true meaning behind this poem, but I was somewhat able to decipher the words to my understanding. There are multiple mentions of water and the sea, but I think that the poem means something related to remembering and enjoying life. Towards the beginning the poem says to “feel the past course through you” (Thúy). It also says to “pin a fish’s tail to the scene [and] inhale the trail of fireworks on the shore”(Thúy). I think this is sort of saying to put a mental marker on an event that you want to remember so that you can enjoy that moment and feel it again while looking back in the future. Later on in the poem, there is a line that reads, “Watch the world explode before your eyes / lift these threads of memory off the floor” (Thúy). In other words, watch things change in the moment so you can form these memories. “Sans Papiers” ends with as follows: “weigh the seas you swallowed to swim here” (Thúy). I think this is very significant because I understood it as saying to reflect on your memories, good and bad, that have shaped you into who you are now.
