Rewriting Kinship

In the wake of the loss of Australian poet Jordie Albiston on the last day of February of this year, I have been reflecting on the profound influence her work had on my reading, writing and appreciation of poetry since I first read excerpts of her work in an undergraduate course reader.

‘What does it mean to be related?’ A writerly conversation between Miriam Wei Wei Lo and Alvin Pang.

Irigaray’s postulation of non-hierarchical sexual difference does not abolish the dominant western model of kinship. It does, however, profoundly modify its structuration so that the exchange of women would no longer be possible.

Adoptees’ curiosity around origins and the past is significant, then, not only because it may lead to unearthing information regarding their personal histories, but also because of the knowledge it generates about a larger, collective experience.

After writing the last three sentences, I find myself at a crossroads. Do I continue or do I pause here to ask the reader, ‘any questions?’ What does the writer do when he comes from the periphery? This question might upset some Singaporeans, who believe that Singapore is an international hub connecting important air lanes and sea routes.

Curiously, I remain me, Sreedhevi Iyer, through all of these kaleidoscopic labels. The way I see it, this need to label me – to categorise and put in a neat box – has more to do with other people’s needs than mine.

As I begin to write kin and ethics no one writes to me. It’s a day or so into 2022 and the Omicron variant blazes across the globe and the containers that I so wanted to hold – physical distancing, vaccinations, testing kits – seem to be more porous than ever.

As I begin to write kin and ethics a dear writing friend corresponds with me in messages about writing and love and rallying and the idea of being ‘inside the between’ when we come close how there is a ‘turning there’ how it is ‘the both of us’ and how the work of language of prepositions and prepositional thinking opens derring-do to a means of queering and transing language that becomes possible.