My Thoughts On "Voyager Dust" By Mohja Kahf
Mohja Kahf is a modern storyteller and like Scheherazad her poetry stories keep the listener or reader captivated. "Voyager Dust" tells the story of immigrants who travel to the United States from another land, from a different culture and language, and have to sink themselves into the American melting pot. Many of these people experience consciously or subconsciously a longing for home and the familiar. Kahf says the immigrant's needs and desires are transmitted by the bearer through the clothes they wear. Clothes take on the scent of the wearer. Scent is a metaphor for desires that exude from the Chinese woman on the bus and Kahf mother's scarves. She and her brother (Kahf) can sense the yearning through what Kahf calls "smell," but that is not what it is. What it is may be difficult to explain in written language. Voyager Dust When they arrive in the new country, voyagers carry it on their shoulders, the dusting of t...