New KTCO: Rachel Edelman
I had a chance to read Rachel Edelman’s debut poetry collection, Dear Memphis, this past spring, and I was struck by how familiar the feelings and questions of these poems felt to me. Questions about what it means to be from a place where you and your people are held apart. About what heritage and inheritance mean, about the difference between exile and diaspora and migration. About being part of a minoritized, oppressed group that nevertheless experiences privilege, and sometimes participates in the oppression of others. About what home means. For Edelman’s speaker, these questions arise from being Jewish in the South. For me, similar questions arise from being Japanese American. It’s not the same, of course, but the way our experiences seemed to rhyme intrigued me, and led to a wonderful conversation about the book, about self-awareness, and about connection through letter-writing.