The Chaos of Longing by K.Y. Robinson
by Sara Kathryn Smith
Sometimes, it might be okay to judge a book by its cover.
In the case of K.Y. Robinson’s 2017 poetry collection The Chaos of Longing, her book cover is pale pink with the outlines of roses. A lone black rose distinguishes itself from the numerous white roses that blend into the pink background. It is bold and in bloom, unashamed and unselfconscious. Just as the black rose stands out among white roses, K.Y. Robinson distinguishes herself in her first poetry collection as a woman of color from the white-dominated field of writing. She weeps over her traumas and celebrates hard-won victories. She exposes taboo topics like childhood sexual abuse and mental illnesses so that she can heal the pain she experienced. In the chaos of longing, Robinson reclaims herself.
The physical appearance of her poems is just as symbolic as the cover of Robinson’s book. The lines in her poems are slender, but the stanzas are tall. Each poem shrinks itself and expands itself, refusing to be entirely minimized. The words might be confined by width, but they side-step the restriction by growing in height. The height of the poem gives each individual line importance. No phrase or emphasis is lost in a tidal wave of words. To add to the paradox, each word — including the author’s name — is entirely lowercase, reminiscent of another African American writer, bell hooks.
Robinson’s chapter titles follow an emotional arch that matches the subject matter. She begins with “inception,” moves into “longing,” shifts into “chaos,” and ends with “epiphany.” Her poems follow this same shift, moving from the inception of her trauma into her epiphany of self-love. Relationships are the background music to every poem. Each poem references the relationship the speaker has with herself, her parents, or her lovers. The inception of her trauma begins with others, but her epiphany reveals self-love will heal her pain. She does not consider herself a victim, but a survivor who gives herself what she needs.
“Chaos” is an important word and an important concept in Robinson’s book. It appears in the book title, in a chapter title, and in many of the poems. The second poem in the book, “faada”, references chaos: “he only said / he loved me / when i was being / reprimanded. / that’s when i learned / i had to tempt chaos / to feel loved”. The title itself sounds like the word “father” and that might explain why the speaker uses the word “reprimand”, a word commonly associated with parental discipline, to describe the man’s actions. It is a cry for love and a reclamation of herself.
Longing is another important word and concept. It also appears in the book title, in a chapter title, and a poem title while it is woven through many of the poems. She explains in the title poem another aspect of the chaos of longing: “this voyage — / the chaos / of longing / is no longer / anchored at sea. / i’ve sailed / the desolate shore / of your heart / and got swept away / by your arctic current. / i floated to the surface / with my heart’s / message in a bottle. / i survived you”. Not only is she crying out for love, she is proclaiming her bravery and strength. She dared to love someone and outlived the subsequent disaster.
Robinson continues airing out her pain by sharing her experiences with having mental illnesses. Several of her poems mention the stigma and shame that burns and buries people with mental illnesses. One of her poems even has the title “stigma & shame”. Her poem “caution” captures the precarious position her friends and acquaintances were in once she shared the truth: “when they find out / you have a mental illness, / they’ll treat you like glass / and anticipate you breaking / at any given moment. / they’ll measure their words / with a pinch of fear / being careful not to overrun / your tiny trembling / cup of sanity.” Robinson’s description of the social response familiar and predictable for those of us who have mental illnesses. We see the fear in the eyes of our friends and families; we know there is nothing we can do to wipe it away. This is a painful truth, but a truth nonetheless.
One recurring topic in Robinson’s book is the intersection of racism and the early sexualization of women of color. Several poems have numbers as their titles. This presumably refers to the age the speaker experienced different occasions of sexual abuse at the hands of older men. Robinson exposes lovers who dismissed her for her skin color in her poem “true colors”:
i am beyond the pale. / my kinky hair, / broad nose, / and full lips / are remnants / of my ancestors. / my pride swells / like yeast / in the heat / of your prejudice. / when i found out my hue / prevented you / from choosing me, / i finally saw / your true colors.
Instead of allowing those lovers to set Robinson’s worth, Robinson celebrates herself while calling down judgment for those who rejected her.
The Chaos of Longing gives a voice to stigmatized experiences as Robinson explores trauma, sexual abuse, racism, and mental illnesses. All of these topics meet and mingle into a collection of poems that handles each painful point with grace and poise, even as Robinson exposes her inner thoughts and feelings. She pours it all out of herself into the light, and replaces the hurt with her new truth: she accepts herself. In her collection, she is able to comfort others who have been in her situation and show that, if she could overcome her anguish and build a new life, others can have the strength to do the same. Her message of self-love empowers not only the author herself by any reader with the same kind of anguish. The Chaos of Longing is a collection on the progression of healing.
