Things We Carry on the Sea

“Things We Carry on the Sea” uses formal and literary techniques to emphasize the repeated phrase “We carry” (Lines 1-12). As the poem progresses, the phrase changes and develops its meaning through the objects and ideas attached to it. The phrase begins as a concrete description of the collective speaker’s “eyes” (Line 1) and emotional state, before growing to encompass metaphorical ideas and burdens. The objects the collective speaker describes carrying often represent the lack of an associated object, place, or person. In other words, the objects the speaker declares in their possession are signs of something larger they left behind. The poem thereby inverts the conventional understanding of what it means to carry.

The poem establishes this conventional definition of “carry” early by using the term in association with concrete, material objects. The speaker singles out the “tears in [their] eyes” (Line 1) and the “small bags” (Line 2) of soil they carry. These physical objects establish the sense of “carry” as lifting something or bringing something from one point to another. This definition of “carry” also works for the “diplomas” (Line 9) and “scars” (Line 3) that the speaker holds. Yet the poem’s formal emphasis on these concrete items threatens to obscure the items’ actual connection with the speaker. The speaker recognizes that their “diplomas” (Line 9), including those in higher education, “mean nothing to the other shore” (Line 9). Similarly, they bring the “soil in small bags” (Line 2) as a way of making sure “home never fade[s] in our hearts” (Line 2). The material objects the speaker brings are not valuable for their own sake but serve a larger symbolic role.

These material objects have a synecdochical relationship with the things the speaker is leaving behind. Synecdoche is a literary technique where the speaker uses a part of something to refer to the whole. This relationship manifests most clearly in the connection between the “small bags” (Line 2) of home soil that the speaker carries to remind them of their entire homeland(s). This kind of relationship holds for all of the material possessions the speaker carries. The “diplomas” (Line 9), for instance, stand in for their entire educations, while the “scars” (Line 4) serve as markers for the “proxy wars of greed” (Line 4). All of these connections—positive or negative—suggest that what the speaker leaves behind is larger and more significant than what they actually carry.

As these synecdochical relationships suggest, even the speaker’s concrete objects are metaphorical. The objects have more importance as symbols than as mere things. Complicating these material objects helps make sense of the speaker’s more abstract metaphors. The “names, stories, memories of our villages, fields, boats” (Line 3) are intangible, yet they have the same relationship with the speaker’s homeland(s) as the concrete objects. The “names, stories, memories” (Line 3) each signal a larger, unspoken connection to place, but this connection becomes abstracted through Ping’s collective speaker. The speaker of “Things We Carry” is an amalgamation of the immigrant experience. Based on the “mother tongues” (Line 15) Ping’s speaker employ, the speaker comes at once from China, the Arab States, Jewish homelands, and South America. These places span most of the globe, and the “names, stories, memories of our villages” (Line 3) need to be abstract to encompass such a variety of experiences and histories.

The breadth of the speaker’s collective identity points to larger issues of Western globalization (see: Themes). While the speaker tries to immigrate into Western culture, they are also trying to flee its global influence. The “carnage of mining, droughts, floods, genocides” (Line 5) reflects the colonial, extractive history of the West’s domination over the world. The droughts and floods highlight the effects of climate change in the developing world, driven by Western consumption. The speaker points to these factors when they call themselves “refugees of the sea rising from industrial wastes” (Line 14). Without the speaker carrying memories and symbols of their culture to the Western world, these things might be lost as climate change makes their homeland(s) uninhabitable.

“Things We Carry on the Sea” has an ironic view of the West and of the burdens its speaker carries. The West is both the cause of the “carnage” (Line 5) that forces the speaker to leave their varied homes and the place where their culture and memories can be preserved. In the same troubled way, what the speaker carries to the West are not objects to help them start a new life but memories, culture, history, and trauma. The poem explores the many definitions of what it means to carry something, but it continually returns to the idea of supporting a weight or lifting a burden. In this way, “Things We Carry” is less about what the speaker holds than the burden of what they have left behind to find a better life. The poem might end on a point of “hope, hope, hope” (Line 18) that the speaker can immigrate, but what they lost will always outweigh what they gain.