Synkroniciti is excited to welcome back poet and writer Kiyoshi Hirawa with “Haunting the Ship of Theseus,” one of our “Haunting” poetry finalists. It examines the challenges of being the partner of someone with schizophrenia. In describing the poem, Kiyoshi writes: “Mental illness changes individuals, but it also changes the people who provide critical support, sometimes to the point where people replace every part of themselves–much like the ship of Theseus–to aid a mentally ill loved one, only to be left haunted by who they’ve become.” The Ship of Theseus is a philosophical thought experiment first posed by Plutarch which inquires whether an object remains the same object if all of its parts are replaced. “Some illnesses are blessedly charted:/ departure, destination, route, however approximate./ Even terminal diseases have a heading and a port./ But this cartography nightmare/ means that whenever your map changes,/ so do I.” Alliteration, assonance, and repetition make for satisfying rhythmic music and the poem’s nautical imagery is thoroughly explored. Kiyoshi creates a sense of human dignity and companionship in the face of challenge that hearkens back to the Greeks and their seafaring adventures and is also quite modern. Human nature has changed little over the centuries, it seems.
Read “Haunting the Ship of Theseus” in Synkroniciti’s “Haunting” issue, Vol. 6, No. 4, available here: https://synkroniciti.com/the-magazine/purchase-individual-issues/.
Kiyoshi Hirawa is a poet, writer, and former police officer who was wrongfully terminated after reporting sexual misconduct and rape committed by fellow police officers. Most of Hirawa’s work focuses on trauma, resiliency, hope, and providing a voice for the unheard, ignored, and overlooked. The remainder drops a net deep into the ocean of humor, and every once in a while, hauls in a joke (catch and release, of course).