"S-21: soccer ball" - Poetry by Peauladd Huy

S-21: soccer ball

A victim of S-21

Day in day out. Twice a day sometimes three:

after each drill-run, you come back beaten-

flat on your back and tossed in the holding compartment

with the others covered in human filth.

You’ve gone above and beyond what is objectively possible

for a small round thing. You’ve taken so many drop-

kicks, knee-jabs, and head-butts from all

players: captains,

warden, interrogators,

edgy guards, unsteady –

too young to nap standing up,

too restless for prison silence.

In the playing field, each contact

delivered upon your person intended

to bury one more for the home-field.

No restraint.

No fumbled thought.

Take-it-home:

all forces are sent in with every intent to lift you off.

You’re all net.

In the end, you’re supple,

a mush inside

this confinement of skin,

riddled by punctured marks, possibly leaking

and bleeding internally.

(S-21 (Tuol Sleng), the notorious Khmer Rouge prison, where 12 survived out of the estimated 17,000 imprisoned in this former high school. My older brothers attended this school (I started first grade at Wat Tuol Tum Pomg). And this was where my brothers often took me to kick a soccer ball in the schoolyard. Sometimes, we would drop by our aunt’s, our mother’s older sister, who lived across from the school (she and her whole family disappeared during the Khmer Rouge years). We moved to Battambang shortly before the takeover on April 17, 1975.)

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About the author:

 Peauladd Huy was born in Cambodia. Both of her parents were executed by the Khmer Rouge. She now lives in the U.S.

Peauladd Huy was born in Cambodia. Both of her parents were executed by the Khmer Rouge. She now lives in the U.S.

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Peauladd Huy Interview, with Monica Mankin

I couldn’t help but notice that your biographical information is strikingly brief, yet it is remarkably revealing. I am deeply sorry for the loss of your family who was among the more than two million people who died before the Khmer Rouge was overthrown in 1979. Coupled with the subject matter of the poems you have published with Connotation Press this month, your biography inspires both my curiosity and my concern:

When did you come to the U.S.? How did your relocation from Cambodia to the U.S. influence your understanding of language and the power that language has both personally and politically? In conjunction with this question, I am considering the following lines from your poem “I am here”: “...you dismissed me, / kicking me in my chest and head, again and again, when I appealed to you / speaking the same language // in the routine of torture.” What, for you, is the connection between “speaking the same language” and “the routine of torture”?

I arrived in the U.S. in 1980 after a series of refugee camps in Thailand.

I can’t say it’s the language per se, which helps me to be more direct, more vocal about my feelings. I’d say it’s through trust and love of a very patient husband that I can now stand up and be loud about my feelings, whereas before I would fold and mull over. Still do it time to time.

As for “speaking the same language” and “the routine of torture”– When I was imprisoned for stealing food, two Khmer Rouge cadres brought me out into the open. It was nighttime. They told me they would let me go if I could run past a certain tree before they could count to ten. I believed them. I took off and reached a tree before ten, but instead I plowed into and bounced off some tree because I could not see. Because I was blindfolded. But I had to at least try. Because I was nine years old, I took things literally, word for word. I found out quickly that those words, theirs, were meaningless, foreign, in a situation where the intent was to harm.

Additionally, do you read and/or write poetry in any language other than English? And, whatever their languages, which writers inspire you to tell your story the way that you do?– which is with a balance of fierce and tamed emotion, and a clear dialogic tone that directly addresses the perpetrators who “...in the routine of torture...” leave the speaker of “I am here”  “...beyond reproach” and asking, “What more can you do? / Piss on my bones again?” But your tone also conveys appreciation and love as we witness in your poem “Tuol Sleng - 2010” when you assume the voice of your mother: “What little food they gave us, we made it special / by switching our bowls. My Sweetie had insisted / so I could get more // to our baby. Our semi-miracle, / still hanging on. Our angel daughter / finally asleep and forgotten about hunger.” Meanwhile, you are careful never to forget your readers, warning them “Reader discretion is advised.” Which writers encourage your voice? From where else does your voice come?

I don’t get to read much with a two-and-a-half-year-old who keeps saying, Quick, I need a hug, Momma. I’m just a baby. When I do read, I mainly stick to English. I tried a while back to write in Khmer, but it was just too hard. I had to look up too many words. My formal education in Cambodia is of first and part of second grade. During the Khmer Rouge, all schools were closed. I cannot read Khmer poems: the language is very different from the everyday Khmer. Khmer poetry is very rigid in meters and rhymes and rhythms. It is presented as a song.

My intention for these poems was to say, among these bone piles, there’re families: there’s a mother, a father, and a child, who were never given a chance to see light. Families are still ruined. “I am here” was written after the first verdict of the tribunal court. I don’t want to discredit the effort to finding justice, but the reality is one cannot hope for a full-service satisfaction in a tainted system. I think that voice comes from being a mother.

Why do you choose to tell your story of loss and extreme injustice through poetry and not another genre? In part two of “I am here” you write, “Don’t be alarmed, Reader. / I am here to speak / because they are too afraid / to remember, still too stunned to speak out....” Can you elaborate on this sentiment? Who do you hope will read these poems? Who is your Reader? What do you hope these poems will accomplish within that audience?

I chose poetry because I didn’t have to use too many words. Not so smart a move.

I want people to understand that she, the speaker, is here not to draw blood, just to tell the story because the survivors are still too hurt to speak out. She has forgiven, but she does not forget.

My hope is to be read.