6 Essential Questions
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About this ebook
Priscila Uppal
Priscila Uppal was an internationally acclaimed poet, prose writer, and playwright. A York University professor and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada, she was the author of Ontological Necessities and Cover Before Striking. Her memoir, Projection: Encounters with My Runaway Mother, was shortlisted for the Hilary Weston Prize and a Governor General’s Award.
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Book preview
6 Essential Questions - Priscila Uppal
6
essential
questions
priscila uppal
playwrights canada press
toronto
contents
introduction
production history
characters
invocation
customs
like mother, unlike daughter
all about mother
siesta
teacups and silver spoons
first course: o passado, the past
a private tour
the language of fantasy
like mother, like daughter
boys learn to fight, girls learn to dance
a bedtime story
the will
second course: o presente, the present
every day is mother’s day
all about daughter
the language of memory
essential questions
third course: o futuro, the future, or bon voyage
dedication
acknowledgements
about the author
also by Priscila Uppal
copyright
Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions.
Edgar Cayce
introduction
Since I am a poet, I hope you won’t mind if I begin this introduction with a poem.
I’m Afraid of Brazilians or Visiting the Ancestral Homeland is Not the Great Ethnic Experience Promised by Other Memoirs
Against all political correctness,
I must say it,
I must admit:
I’m afraid of Brazilians.
I don’t like them.
I don’t like this country.
I don’t like this language.
I don’t even like this currency.
And not in the mystical sense.
Or the abstract.
Or the perfectly hypothetical.
I can’t blame this fear
on movies, or television programming,
or the front covers
of Time magazine.
No.
I’m afraid of Brazilians.
I am visiting Brazil
(my mother’s country)
and I’m afraid, truly afraid
of every Brazilian I meet.
This is not something you can say
in a poem, you tell me.
Please don’t compose this poem
here: in broad daylight
where any self-respecting Brazilian
could feel perfectly justified
peeking over your shoulder
to see what you’ve written.
Please, not so loud, you say.
You haven’t given them a chance.
You’re right, I admit.
(I can certainly admit it.)
I’ve given them no chance
to please me. Don’t you
understand, this is the nature
of being afraid, and this is
the nature of the poem
I am writing, which must
get written, no matter
what the climate
or the reception
(here, in my mother’s country
or abroad
or in my own ears).
—from Ontological Necessities (Exile Editions, 2006)
There are so many things we are not supposed to talk about. So many things we don’t want to talk about. So many things no one wants to hear.
And then there are essential things that must be said. Essential things that must be acknowledged. Essential things you dream one day you will hear.
I wrote this poem after meeting my mother for the first time in twenty years. She abandoned my brother, me, and our quadriplegic father in Ottawa, leaving me and my brother to basically raise ourselves. I didn’t hear from her or know where she was until I accidentally stumbled upon her personal website. Even though I was in shock, I contacted her and planned a trip to Brazil, the land of her birth, and the place she ran to after running away from us.
What does it mean to be a mother when you haven’t seen your daughter in twenty years? What does it mean to be a daughter when you know almost nothing about your mother? What does it mean to be Brazilian when you know almost nothing about Brazil? What does it mean to have DNA or memories?
Most people dream of family reunions as blissful affairs of reconnection and reconciliation. For most people this dream remains a fantasy—a lovely one, but a fantasy nonetheless.