Refugenius: Floating Worlds at the Soap Factory

Spilling Secrets! Woo-ing 40 somethings! Imagining Memories and not a drop of alcohol in my body!

I (Saymoukda Vongsay) had another successful reading with volumes of thanks to the audience and my co-readers at the Soap Factory. I chose to share 'stark and brutally honest' poetry about family history and identity. My writing, a response to the inflated sculptures of visual artist Clive Murphy, probably garnered me a new fan base - 40 somethings.

The poem, "Almost Drowning," is an imagined re-telling of another's memory - the night communist soldiers stormed my grandfather's estate - told to me by my mother. The connection between "Almost Drowning" and the sculptures by Clive Murphy was simply, inflated plastic bags. In the poem, many families utilized inflated bags to help them escape a brutal reality, while Murphy manipulates the bags in ways they were not initially intended but for something more beautiful - as art.