To Inhabit Our Inheritance
Julian O.
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To Inhabit Our Inheritance is a collection of three poems I wrote across time and space. These words drifted to me in minutes, hours, or days, and I crafted these pieces with the intent of translating my thoughts and experiences of living on this planet into personal art. Although two of the poems were written with an English class in mind, I aimed to develop authentic representations of a life very much attuned to nature and culture, with little revision. The collection begins with “coast creature,” a musing on the shoreline, both a border and a bridge. I wrote this on the Hawaiian island of Maui during the devastating wildfires in August, and the reality at the time may have prompted me to poetically preserve the island’s vibrancy. “Land of Vital Blood” is a poem I wrote for my current English class, and I wanted to express the broad and complex identity that is America. I refer to my own identity, being a person of color descended from immigrants. I composed “Our Garden Aflame” in my sophomore English class, getting the chance to perform it aloud since then. So much passion is embedded within, with hints of Napa Valley and its own history of wildfire. I like to imagine this piece illuminating the truths of climate change and the state of our society. Ultimately, with To Inhabit Our Inheritance, creativity called me to shape my perceptions of Earth and its human residents into words of candor, concern, and curiosity.
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From my point of view, creativity is the individual and shared journey and imagination to express one’s own experience. It is all about understanding something and then diversely communicating it. In some ways, creativity is the human will to make a mark and decide whether to remove or remold it.
