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In Myriam Gurba’s memoir Mean, Gurba calls attention to the sexual violence women experience and how it feels to live life after trauma. Gurba after going through a traumatic sexual assault lives with fear. Unfortunately, that fear has attached to her and now changes the way she views the world around her. We typically hear about traumatic experiences and what happened in the moment however, it is important to discuss the pain that lingers and the after-effects sexual assault has on a person.

Experiencing sexual assault has left Gurba viewing the world around her differently. It has left her questioning the meaning of surviving and the meaning of rape. To Gurba, rape is everywhere. It’s lurking in the air, the sky, the dugout, the infield, and the neighbors. When Gurba lists the places rape hides it alludes to the idea that rape is something that can happen anywhere even in the most mundane places and even with ordinary-looking people. Gurba after experiencing rape feels that it has changed her when she states “After a stranger ambushes you and assails your private parts, everything becomes new. Everything is reborn. Everything takes on a new hue, the color of rape. You look at the world through rape-tinted glasses. You understand that you live in a world where getting classically raped is possible and that classical rapists lurk everywhere, even in impossible places”(111). Seeing the world through “rape-tinted glasses” shows that after the assault Gurba has become paralyzed by unease and distrust in the world. This danger is everywhere and she can’t escape the possibility of a sexual threat. Gurba also mentions that she now sees her rapist everywhere. She says “I saw flashes of him in nearly every man. The curve shaved head was him. A sharp grin was him. A bright white T-shirt was him. Tightly laced Nikes were him. Five o’clock shadow was him. Post traumatic omnipresence”(126). Seeing this man in shoes, hair, and t-shirts shows that too Gurba her attacker is everywhere in everything. This pain of seeing her attacker everywhere in every man also leads to the conversation on mental health and PTSD. Gurba has discussed that PTSD is something that was given to her when she says “Did you know PTSD is the only mental illness you can give someone? A person gave it to me. A man actually drove me crazy.” Talking about mental health and being given a mental health illness shows that after a traumatic event like the one she encountered, she and other women struggle mentally. The pain and fear of her experience are carried with her through life and are feelings she continues to struggle with. Gurba shows that life after a traumatic experience is hard and many victims go through fear, distrust, and PTSD.

Throughout the book, Gurba also shows that life after a traumatic event also comes with a lot of guilt and victim-blaming. Gurba shares that she felt guilty for her own assault stating that “I silently doubted my defense. Had I not been wearing a skirt, it wouldn’t have been easy for that smile to go where it didn’t belong”(125). This line stood out to me because it explores the idea of victim-blaming. As women, we are constantly taught how to protect ourselves and “prevent” the chance of getting assaulted, even though there is no way to prevent these things from happening and blame should never be placed on a victim. Unfortunately, hearing statements like “What was she wearing?” has made victims blame themselves as demonstrated by Gurba blaming herself for wearing a skirt. Gurba also draws attention to her own victim-blaming when she questions the meaning of her life being spared but another woman being killed. Gurba says ” If I’d chase him into that alley, caught up to him, taken off my shoe, and beaten him with it like Mom taught me you’re supposed to do with cockroaches, then he wouldn’t have been out stalking, grabbing, and mutilating women”(139). Gurba blames herself for not trying to fight and follow this man which she feels would have stopped him from hurting other women. There is a lot of survivor’s guilt involved in surviving this attack when another woman was killed. Gurba shows that some victims of sexual assault sadly suffer from guilt and blaming themselves in different ways for what happened or what they could have done.

Gurba through sharing her experience has taught readers the many struggles women face after experiencing assault. Sharing her experience with PTSD, guilt, and victim-blaming has demonstrated the various ways trauma affects people later on in life.

Discussion Questions

1. Gurba mentions “But I also enjoy being mean” and “being rude to men who deserve it is a holy mission” in this memoir . Is her behavior towards men actually meanness, or is it a valid defense mechanism?
2. Gurba uses a lot of humor and sarcasm in her memoir even when discussing difficult topics. Why do you think she writes in this style and what does it do for her book? Could humor be a way of coping with trauma?

From the beginning of Myriam Gurba’s Mean, Gurba has constantly stated this overwhelming feeling of guilt when she feels the presence of Sophia Loren’s ghost, a girl who was raped and killed by a man. Up until this point, we had been unaware as to what her relationship to Sophia is and why she harbors such strong feelings of guilt. We finally learn more about what the two had in common, the same perpetrator. Gurba relives her experience and describes the horrifying scene where the only thing she could think of was how embarrassing the situation was. She was not only humiliated on her own but then when searching for help she is shamed by others around her. 

            It is upsetting that someone who went through a traumatic event is not initially thinking about her own well-being and is instead concerned about what other people are thinking about, especially the man who did these horrid things to her. “The only other detail I’ll give is one that seared me with humiliation. “Oh my god,” I thought horrified. “I’m wearing my period underwear.”” (Gurba, 119) This line makes it seem as though it is her fault, that she should have been more “presentable” for this man who is assaulting her. It also shows that in this society, it is a lose-lose-situation, because if she had been wearing something more “suitable” she would have been called a slut and a whore and people would tell her if she wasn’t wearing something like that it probably wouldn’t have happened. It is a disgusting narrative that we unfortunately see very often where many people look to the victim of assault and try to see where they “went wrong”. There is simply nothing a victim could do than what they did. If their survival instincts told them to freeze, run, fight none of that is their fault. Instead of looking at what the victim should have done perhaps we can for once look at what the predator did and go off of that. There should never be the question as to what the victim was wearing, what they did or didn’t do. It is frustrating that these thoughts have been so ingrained into everyone’s minds that while a victim is actively being assaulted she can only think about the embarrassment that she is facing because she isn’t wearing the sexiest underwear in the world. 

Later, we feel more of the shame Gurba feels when she is grabbed and has to make the “walk-of-shame” past people who know that something extremely vulnerable and personal just happened to her. “The school secretaries turned as we entered. They looked at me. They had the same looks on their faces the principal had upon first seeing me. It was one I’d never seen before but recognized immediately. It was the oh-god-she’s-been-raped look.” (Gurba, 121) This line can read so many ways to me. While it could be a look of sympathy, the way I believe it to be is almost like a here-we-go-again type of tone to it. As if Gurba’s assault was an inconvenience to them. Not only would she feel shame in this moment for what happened but now she has to be concerned over what people think about her and her situation. This gives us an accurate understanding over what it is like for victims of assault, even if no one is directly saying to them it is their fault or they should be ashamed, we see that people just are involved and will have thoughts on something that does not have anything to do with them. Even if the way they were looking at her came from a place of sympathy, no one wants to look like someone others would want to pity, they do not want to be seen as a vulnerable victim, especially someone as “mean” as Gurba. Society views these people as weak, in all senses, mental and physical. These are not fair assumptions though because anyone who is a victim of any attack needs to cope and overcome in their own ways and how they handled the situation before and after is not and should not be a tell on their strength as a person. 

            Finally, the last instance of shame we see through this section is when Gurba is yelled at by the nurse after her traumatic experience. “”STOP CRYING!” yelled the nurse. Her command shocked me silent. “You’re going to have to get over this,” she said. “These kinds of things happen. You’re going to have to get over this. Do you hear me?” Her forehead tensed. Her skin grew stern.” (Gurba, 122) To be told in a place where you believe you are going to get help to get over something that just happened could be extremely shattering to a person. These things take time to heal and snapping at someone who is clearly still frazzled by the situation is not the way to go about it at all. This is something we see everyday, sometimes not to the same extent of it being right after it happened but victims are told to just “get over” something extremely traumatic. Gurba and many other victims experience PTSD, it is not something they can just control and anything in everyday life could trigger someone. Some if not most people never truly recover from these situations, and being told by others to speed up their recovery process could be really disheartening, as it could feel as though they are being a burden to other people because of the situation they went through. This brings more shame from a situation where there should not have been any to begin with. We could try to understand where these people are coming from, it is true that it is something that they can not change or do anything about so what is the use of being upset over it? PTSD is ultimately a defense mechanism, when a person goes through something so traumatic the body and mind will react in a certain way in order to almost keep them cautious and if something triggers them, there is a reason for this. It is almost as though your instincts are raised incredibly and you are hyper aware of things around you. So while it would be nice to just “get over” something like this, these experiences could change someone’s life indefinitely.

1. Why might Gurba or any other victims of assault feel shame when they are ultimately not at fault for what happened?
2. Why was everyone so insensitive to the situation and is the nurse right in what she says, should Gurba just “get over this”?

Gurba, Myriam. Mean. Coffee House Press, 2017.

In the memoir Mean by Myriam Gurba, Gurba takes the reader through her childhood and her adult life. Gurba takes on sexual violence, abuse, and life experiences; turning these dark and serious matters into comedy. She grew up as what she describes a queer Mexican woman and the experiences she went through growing up made her the person she is today. Gurba uses her dark sense of humor to tackle these very hard topics, such as the hardships of growing up female.

Throughout the memoir, Gurba Gurba ties everything towards the hardship of growing up as a woman. Gurba opens the book with the rape and murder of Sophia, showing how innocent and scared Sophia is. Gurba says, “[Sophia] clutches her purse. Her fingers worry its strap” (1). Girls and young woman walk the streets of the town they think is safe everyday until something terrifying like this happens. Girls worry that something like this will happen to them and Gurba shows how traumatic these situations are. Later on in the memoir, Gurba talks about her sister Ofelia’s eating disorder. She doesn’t really allude to this but society gives girls this stereotype of how they are supposed to look, how skinny you are supposed to be. This stereotype traps young girls like Ofelia and makes them think they have to adapt to these societal norms. Gurba goes to her mom saying “Ofelia has anorexia” (50). Her mom doesn’t believe her and says that Ofelia just needs to eat more. Gurba then brings this attention to her dad who says the same thing. Her parents didn’t notice how bad this was until it was almost too late. Many girls at a young age go through something traumatic and society shapes these girls into unhealthy human beings.

Gurba does use humor throughout the book to deal with and talk about these events but the way she describes these events are also very real and raw. There are so many emotions that I personally felt reading this memoir, even when she did make use of humor in describing these events.

Discussion questions:

1. How do the language and the description of these types of scenes make you feel with the use of humor?
2. Can the stereotypes that society presses on people also be good? Are they just bad?

Gurba, Myriam. Mean. Coffee House Press, 2017.

Lindsey Branigan

In Myriam Gurba’s memoir Mean, Gurba writes about her journey through girlhood and womanhood and the violence and abuse that may sadly come along with it. Gurba describes herself as a queer Mexican woman, and growing up as a queer Mexican woman has made her into the person she is today. Throughout this memoir, there are traumatic events that happen such as sexual abuse and assault, racism, and misogyny, and Gurba uses her dark sense of humor to deal with these events. Along with her dark sense of humor, Gurba also uses metaphors, such as her usage of the term “ghosts.” 

Throughout this memoir, Gurba mentions “ghosts” and death many times. The first time we read about ghosts is when Gurba is mentioning guilt. On page 3 after reading the story of Sophia, Gurba writes, “Sophia is always with me. She haunts me. Guilt is a ghost” (Gurba 3). Gurba writes this because guilt is not something we can see much like ghosts, but guilt is something that is carried with us or, like Gurba states, ‘haunts us.’ Nevertheless, it is not the last time we hear about it. The ghosts in this memoir are carried with Gurba, and end up aligning with her experiences with sexual abuse when she is in her history class in high school. Gurba describes an experience with her classmate, who she calls Macaulay. Gurba writes about the molestation, “You can’t see Macaulay on me, but you can read him. He treated me like an artist working with dirt” (Gurba 32). Macaulay in this instance is another ghost of Gurba’s past, one that molested her and left an “invisible imprint” (Gurba 32) on her When Gurba is in junior high, she describes an event that happened when she was drinking with her friends and was caught by the police, but was let go. “I was allowed to escape. I was allowed to walk away from that spot. Sophia was not. Guilt is a ghost. Guilt interrupts narratives. It does so impolitely. Ghosts have no etiquette…” (Gurba 55). In this instance, Gurba feels guilty that she was able to escape a situation when Sophia was not. Gurba was out, having a fun night with her friends, and was let go by the police officer. The thought of Sophia not being able to escape shrouded her mind and subconscious so much that it “interrupted her narrative so impolitely.” Myriam Gurba also had a sister, Ofelia. Ofelia dealt with Anorexia that consumed her as eating disorders do their hosts. Ofelia had to live at the hospital at one point, which Gurba wrote down and described how their home felt. Gurba writes, “When Ofelia went to live at the hospital, she became even more of a ghost” (Gurba 53). Gurba writes this because although her sister is absent, she can still feel her presence in the home. She can still feel her around (like the guilt she carries every day) even though she cannot physically see her or be with her.

Alongside ghosts, Gurba is intentional with her use of language. Whether it be her use of dark humor or the way she strategically places poems in the text, it is intentional. An example of her intentional use of language would be on page 71 when she is talking about her abuelita’s death. She writes, “Death does have a gender. She likes to flirt” (Gurba 71). Gurba writes this sentence and gives death the ‘she’ pronoun to go against the presumed gender roles and misogyny that have been constantly placed on her, her friends, and many inanimate things in life. When you think of death or the Grim Reaper, you typically think of a masculine figure that carries a sythe. Gurba saying ‘she’ breaks down those sterotypical gender normalities placed on everyday things.

Discussion Questions:

1.) What do you think the purpose of Gurba writing about guilt on page 55 was? Explain. Are there any other important examples of ghosts in the text that Gurba mentioned?

2.) Why do you think Gurba presumed death as “she,” and not “he,” or “it?” Do you think she did this on purpose? Why or why not?

Work Cited

Gurba, Myriam. Mean. Coffee House Press, 2017.

I chose to create my poem about the rise in child abuse cases due to the coronavirus pandemic. The article by Candy Woodall in USA Today talked about the increase in severe child abuse cases where children are being hospitalized and unfortunately killed. The article talks about how Dr. Norrell Atkinson, section chief of the child protection program at St. Christophers Hospital for Children located in Philadelphia noticed that children are coming in with more severe injuries that are requiring hospitalization. She mentions that either the stress of a pandemic or increased time at home is leading to the rise in child abuse. The hospital has teams of doctors who either are dedicated to noticing signs of physical abuse or sexual abuse in children. Both teams are noticing a rise in severity. This article was incredibly sad to see how many children are mistreated and are living in unsafe conditions. Towards the end of the article, there is a list of names of children who were killed or severely injured by their own parents. The last line of my poem is about one of the children mentioned in the article who was killed at just 6 weeks old. I took many headings and facts from the article to use in my poem. I compiled things that stood out to me such as the statistic that ” 1 in 4 children in America experience maltreatment at some point”. This is an important issue that I feel needs to be discussed more because many children are in serious danger.

Woodall, Candy. “As Hospitals See More Severe Child Abuse Injuries during Coronavirus, ‘the Worst Is Yet to Come’.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 13 May 2020, www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/05/13/hospitals-seeing-more-severe-child-abuse-injuries-during-coronavirus/3116395001/. 

Erin Clifford

I wanted my found poem to be on something that I could relate to, so I chose to do my poem on the song, “See You Again” by Wiz Khalifa.  This song was written and dedicated to Paul Walker. Paul Walker passed away in 2013, and many people were affected by his death. Dealing with death is a very difficult thing to go through and this song portrayed the feelings of grief and gave hope.  

For my poem I wanted to leave a lot of blank space on the page to emphasize the meaning of the words on the page.  I also chose to block out some words and to make some of the words bolded.  Where I blocked out the word from the sentence it was to make the words around it stand out more.  The words that have been bolded are also meant to stand out and be important.  The bolded words are very important to me because they emphasize how real and long term death is.  While writing this poem I felt very sad because I could relate to this song.  My best friend passed away unexpectedly last year, so I know what it is like to lose someone you never thought you would, and so suddenly.  Doing this poem has definitely helped me to understand ZONG! because when  I first looked at these poems I felt like they were just words on a page, but now I realize that all of the separation and blank space has meaning to the poem.

My found poem primarily focuses on the song “This is America”, by Childish Gambino. The central message of the song is about gun violence and police brutality within America. As I continued to work on the poem, I developed heavy feelings of sadness and anger due to the injustices faced within our generation today. I specifically chose this song in order to compare it to Zong! as they both display a lot of strong and powerful emotions. For instance, I highlighted my poem’s introductory verses in different colors to create a sense of imagery. The lyric “hunnid band” is in green as it resembles the ideology of money and wealth, and the lyric “contraband” is in red as it resembles a warning or crime. I also bolded repetitive lyrics like black men as it represented the significance of the struggle African Americans face. I felt the usage of repetition within the song was like Philip’s writing style in Zong! as it resembles the importance of how language is used and how it can represent a central idea of a lyric or story. Another strategy I did was I spaced a lot of the words far from one another in order to allow the readers to process the seriousness of the lyrics and allows the readers to take a quick pause and be able to feel the emotions the author is conveying. In addition, writing this poem made me realize it is not that simple as it seems. Every story has a central purpose, and it takes a lot of effort and time to display that idea effectively. Philip’s techniques are very unique within her poems as it develops a sense of creativity by the usage of strong word choice and grammar. I feel that after creating my own found poem it allows me to have a better understanding of how much work goes into this type of writing and why Phillips chose this strategy to write her poems in Zong!

Emma Ruch

Zong! By M. NourbeSe Philip focuses on the ship Zong and the neglection and mistreatment Captain Luke Collingwood had towards the enslaved Africans on the ship. The poems in Zong! are to tribute and memorializing the death of the enslaved people who lost their lives on the ship. The format of the poems leads to confusion and frustration as the reader is putting it together. This is because Philip’s takes the idea as a whole and breaks it down by separating words, using fragments of words, filling the page with blank spaces, and using repetition of specific words throughout the page. This specific format pulls emotion out of the reader by trying to get them to understand what is trying to be said. It is almost as if there is a full article of someone speaking about a topic, and Philip pulls out words and letters from the text to focus on the importance of what is trying to be said. The reason this could be frustrating is that the reader is going to have a hard time piecing together what is being said because the message is not always clear.

Knowing the fact that the ship was overcrowded and had about double the amount of desired people for the size of the ship, there began to be a need for a water supply. This causes the Captain to think of many ways they can reduce the amount of water being consumed, so there is enough for everyone on the ship. With a lack of water and resources, Collingwood decided that it would be best to massacre more than 130 Africans on the ship. The text states, “Captain Luke Collingwood is of the belief that if the African slaves on board die a natural death, the owners of the ship will have to bear the cost, but if they were ‘thrown alive into the sea, it would be the loss of the underwriters” (Philips – 189). This quote inherently reveals the cause for the ‘need’ to massacre the innocent people, so the British workers on the ship can still be provided with basic needs. Collingwood tries to cover up his actions of this gruesome action by saying the enslaved people have died due to natural causes of being on the ship. Being a white male he had the advantage to get away with these unforgivable acts stated in the text as, “The ship’s owners begin legal action against their insurers to recover their loss. A jury finds the insurers liable and orders them to compensate the ship’s owners for their loss — their murdered slaves” (Philips- 189). This proves that the jury did not take into consideration the whole case because the idea of it does not seem logical. 

Zong #1 focuses on both the ideas above (the format of the specific poem and the need for water) put into a poem. Philip’s writes Zong #1 almost as a cry for help. Reading through this poem it is almost as reading a person struggling to ask for water. This constant need for water is based on the water storage from the ship, and the stutter of words and sentences. Although throughout the whole poem is letters spread out, towards the end it is clear that the words “water” and “want of water” are being stated throughout the whole poem. This poem would be challenging to interpret if the ending of the book was not read with the background story of what inspired these poems to be. There can be an overall theme of water being looked upon in this poem. It is obvious that there is a call for the need for water on the ship, but it can also be connected to the fact that these innocent enslaved Africans are being thrown overboard into the water as well. It is almost as if the whole theme of this poem revolves around water. This repetitive call for water, “wa         te       r         wat            er      wa   ter         of          w           ant” (Philips – 4) proves that the speaker is gasping for air in between each pace of words. After considering the fact of the circumstances going on, this could be interpreted in two different ways on what the author was trying to tell the reader. Although the enslaved people were probably talking about the need for drinking water, considering the events going on and the treatment they are getting, it could be interpreted that they are calling for the water outside of the boat. 

Discussion Questions:

1. How is the format of Philip’s poems different from ones usually focused on in school curriculum? Explain your answer with what stands out about the appearance of this structured poem.
2. How would you explain the legal system during the time of the Gregson v. Gilbert case?
3. In what different ways can you interpret Zong #1. How does this meaning connect to the overall historical background of the Zong ship? 

Philip, M. NourbeSe. Zong! Wesleyan University Press, 2008.