In 2024, the Academy of American Poets invited twelve poets to each curate a month of poems. In this short Q&A, Sarah Gambito discusses her curatorial approach and her own creative work.
Poets.org: Welcome to the Guest Editor Q&A hosted by the Academy of American Poets. I’m Mary Sutton, senior content editor at the Academy, and I’m here today with the Guest Editor for October, which is Filipino Heritage Month, Sarah Gambito. Sarah is the author of Loves You. Sarah, welcome. Thank you, thank you so much for joining me today.
Sarah Gambito: It’s great to be here. I’m so thrilled to have curated these poems for Filipino History Month. It’s really wonderful.
Poets.org: I agree. Let’s jump right into it. How did you approach curating Poem-a-Day for October?
Gambito: So I was thinking about two things that are interrelated. The first was this epigraph in DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi. So, the quote is this: “No imagination helps avert destitution in reality, none can oppose oppressions or sustain those who ‘withstand’ in body or spirit. But imagination changes mentalities, however slowly it may go about this.” So, it’s an epigraph in the book, DMZ Colony, but it was written by Édouard Glissant, and it was translated by Betsy Wing, and Don Mee Choi is servicing it in her book, DMZ Colony. And I love the quote, and I’ll return back to it, but I was thinking about this idea of literary lineage. And in my life, there’s a certain literary melody that I’ve been following. In each of these poets’ work, I could feel the earth break and water itself. And I’ve thought of curation as an opportunity to share this, kind of following in the footsteps of poets that I admire so, so much. So, there’s this idea of poetry changing mentalities, imagination changing mentalities, but also this idea of, who am I in lineage with?
Poets.org: Speaking of lineages, if you could direct readers to one poem, or more than one, in our collection at Poets.org that you haven’t curated, what would it be and why?
Gambito: Yes, yes. I teach this poem almost every year. It’s “Gitanjali 35” by [Rabindranath] Tagore. I love this poem so, so much. I love that, in terms of form and content, you have this kind of out indent of the first line, “Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high …” And then this repetition of the word “where” following beginning of every first line. But that “without the mind,” “without fear.” And if the head is not held high, then none of these things become possible. Knowledge is not free. The world will be broken if we are fearful. And there’s also a kind of plaintiveness to this incantation of the “where.” I can read it almost as pleading, as of almost desperate-ness to it. But then I can also read it as strong, as a kind of spell, as something that is emphatic and dramatic because of the repetition. So I like that there’s both in there.
And I really like that the last line, “Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake,” because we kind of stay in the kind of esoteric, the world, the mind. But then we go into the personal here, “Into that heaven of freedom, my father, let my country awake.” And so, you move into the family space. And from that you can begin to talk about the country.
So, I also love that Gitanjali is songs. It means “a song.” And so, it’s meant to be interpreted through the body, through the voice. I think that’s all there too. Yes, I really, really love this poem.
Poets.org: Who or what are you reading right now?
Gambito: Yes. So I’m rereading DMZ Colony. I just … I think I almost fell to the ground when I realized what she was doing in this book in terms of history and translation. Neo-colony. I can’t recommend that book enough.
I’m also reading this book called The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg. This idea of the third space. That how much you need that. You have your home, you have your work, but that people need a third space to sort of keep inventing themselves, the self that’s not defined by home and work. So yeah, I really … I’m enjoying learning from that book.
Poets.org: And what are you working on now in your writing, teaching, and publishing lives?
Gambito: You know, I really thought about this question a lot. And … I realize that my answer is that … I think [Rainer Maria] Rilke says, learn to live the questions themselves. I’m sort of learning how to live in a certain way, and my question right now is what is the role of the artist in times of global heartbreak? Right?
And going back to DMZ Colony, imagination changes mentalities, however slowly. What happens when we want a poem to stop a bomb? Right? What happens when it can’t quite do that? I don’t have the answers, but I’m just trying to live the question, trying to live the poem. And most of all, yeah, I’m feeling very, very quiet right now, very listening right now, which is a kind of reading.
I’m thinking about how Mary Oliver said writing is like talking and reading is like listening. So, I’m listening. I’m reading our moment, and I’m thinking a lot about how poets can step into power right now. What does that look like? How can we hold shelter for one another?
Poets.org: I want to talk a little bit about your past work, particularly in Loves You, your most recent collection. Food is an integral facet of your poetry and a key conduit for connection. I’m thinking particularly of “I Am Not from the Philippines” in which the Olive Garden, a pretty banal space, I think most of us would agree, becomes this site of intercultural connection and a place wherein you interrogate interracial relationships right from the outset of the poem.
Now, during his Guest Editor Q&A in January 2022, Joseph O. Legaspi described how you infuse what he called “nonpolitical elements” into your work, including recipes and menus, particularly in Loves You. Why is food such an important element of your work, particularly the transcriptions of recipes and takeout menus that you incorporate into poems?
Gambito: I totally know the answer to this. Food is my family’s love language. [laughs] It’s how we are legible to one another. When I go home, I often will cook for my family, and it’s a way that I can feel understood and they can feel understood. And recipes as a blueprint for how something gets created, how it is made visible and concrete … I don’t know. The recipes are a kind of magic to me. If you dare to … answer the call of the recipe, something wonderful might happen. A recipe is an invitation, isn’t it? Right?
And it’s interesting because it uses commands, right? Do this, do this. Right? But on the page, the recipe is an invitation. And isn’t poetry an invitation after all?
Poets.org: It is indeed. This has been delightful. Thank you so much, Sarah.
Gambito: Thank you.