Core Memories: Muriel Leung
From Associate Editors Patrick De Leon and David Marquez: We believe the origin of our work as creators is important to consider and hold. In CORE MEMORIES, we ask artists and writers about their own creative beginnings. What led them to operate in their genre of choice? Was it a specific moment, an errant thought, a movement? Was it an insight, a person, a place? Years into their work, does it continue to resonate?
In our inaugural edition, we interview Muriel Leung.
Muriel Leung is the author of Imagine Us, The Swarm (Nightboat Books), Bone Confetti (Noemi Press), and Images Seen to Images Felt (Antenna) in collaboration with artist Kristine Thompson. A Pushcart Prize nominated writer, her writing can be found in The Baffler, Cream City Review, Gulf Coast, The Collagist, Fairy Tale Review, and others. She received her PhD in Creative Writing and Literature from University of Southern California where she was an Andrew W. Mellon Humanities in a Digital World fellow. She is from Queens, NY. You can find Muriel at @murmurshewrote and at www.murielleung.com.
What is your CORE MEMORY?
There’s two instances: 1) In high school, a creative writing teacher introduced me to Ishle Yi Park, a Korean American spoken word poet and musician who was an alum and who was the first Asian American poet I have ever heard of. Suddenly, it was like I could imagine myself as a writer. Representation does matter and can be healing, at least to jumpstart my realization that I could do the very same thing she did—go to college to study writing, write a book, perform on a stage, travel the world as an artist. It is incredible how witnessing someone who shares some part of your life, even in a distant way, can really inspire you to dream. 2) Regarding dreaming, my mother used to say that when I was little, I would entertain myself by staring at my hands. “What were you thinking about?” she asked. I can’t say for sure, but I think I was trying to understand something about myself in relationship to the universe, which was and continues to be a continuous inquiry in my poetry.
How has that moment impacted your current work or current artistic practice?
I say representation matters, but I want to add that it is the density of representation that matters and what lies beyond it. My artistic practice is very much concerned with experimentation, the transgression of genre lines, and the political ramifications of these leaps—community-oriented, asking questions of identity and social (un)belonging, kinship and affinity, queer and radical love, etc. It’s not enough that I exist but that my work is tethered to uplifting others who may see themselves in my work but who may, like me at one point, struggle to shatter the barrier to entry. I support the work of artists of color, disabled artists, queer and trans and nonbinary artists who want to be perceived beyond a token of someone’s limited imagination. Density of representation means that we push for work that honors the opacity of our experiences, that is focused on the thick and murky substance of our lives rather than making our memories palatable for a more privileged audience. I want my art to inspire other artists, writers, and makers to extend beyond what I know, to continue to forge new ground where others coming through can feel like they enter with less loneliness.
Are there any new projects you’re working on?
Please check out my recent collection of essays in verse Imagine Us, The Swarm (Nightboat Books). Across seven constellated texts, this collection is a book of dreaming, survival, and cellular memory of Asian American life and grief.