“Where do we learn the art of explication? What can our origins teach us about who we should be?” Quan Barry recited from her poem “The Excavated Foundations of the Salem Village Parsonage As Resipiscence.”
On March 25, the Benton Museum of Art held a poetry reading with Barry, a poet, novelist and playwright. Co-sponsored by the Pomona College English department, the event was related to the Benton’s “Black Ecologies in Contemporary American Art” exhibit currently on display. The exhibit, which the English department faculty helped curate, explores the Black body in relation to the natural environment.
Barry read from a diverse array of poems, with subjects ranging from a Vietnamese ghost story to the bodhisattva Quan Am to the Vietnamese boat people of the 70s and 80s.
Barry, a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was born in Saigon and grew up in Danvers, Massachusetts.
“Danvers is actually where the Salem Witch Trials began,” she explained. “Salem, back in 1692, used to be much bigger, and the town of Danvers used to be a part of Salem.”
This history informed Barry’s 2019 comedy fiction novel “We Ride Upon Sticks,” which is set in Danvers. The novel, which follows a girl’s field hockey team that dabbles in witchcraft as they work toward the state’s championship, was loosely based on Barry’s own experience.
“Generally speaking, I write very little about myself,” Barry admitted. When talking about the term “trauma,” she said, “I don’t like to use that word, but it’s probably the word that people would attach to the things that I write.”
Her writings in both fiction and poetry often use the backdrop of history to contemplate what it means to be a human.
“I am interested in telling stories not just about me personally but about things that have happened in the world and documenting them in certain kinds of ways,” Barry said.
Her depiction of Danvers in “We Ride Upon Sticks” explores the history of Salem whilst also critiquing the 1980s culture in which the novel is set.
“Even though it’s funny, there’s a lot of social criticism in it about the 1980s,” Barry said of the novel. “The 1980s were homophobic and racist, not that we’re not those things now, but there were ways in which it was more part of the culture.”
Barry similarly explores the histories and cultures of Vietnam and Mongolia in her books “She Weeps Each Time You’re Born” (2015) and “When I’m Gone, Look for Me in the East” (2022), respectively.
“In each one of my books, I want [readers] to enjoy the story but I also want them to take something away from it,” Barry said.
“You oftentimes turn to art to find out how people were really feeling, not just what was happening.”
Attendee Ely Tan PO ’28 found herself moved by Barry’s poetry.
“It felt ethereal in a way,” Tan said. “The way Professor Barry writes is so moving; I read her poetry book ‘Asylum’ [2001] and every single poem was just so well written.”
For another attendee, Yuankai Gao PO ’28, this event was the first time coming into contact with Barry’s poetry.
“It was incredible,” Gao said. “I felt like it was ephemeral, evocative and beautiful.”
“Some people say that art is to teach, to pass on traditions or what have you. Other people would say, ‘No, it’s art for art’s sake,’” Barry explained. “I don’t think you have to make distinctions because I think it’s all true.”
In confronting the often traumatic histories around her, Barry explores the very real human feelings that come with them.
“You oftentimes turn to art to find out how people were really feeling, not just what was happening,” Barry said.
For Barry, art is fundamentally human. “We create art now to show us ourselves, in a way, to know things about ourselves,” she said. “To document our very short periods of time here on this planet.”
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