Hi Asher,
I'm surprised no one commented on this, and so I think I'll give it a brief read. I think the title is fantastic, and the organizing conceit of the poem is also. In fact, the only real suggestions I have for this poem are edits. There are moments when the poem is trying, I think, too hard to make its points about ethnicity & history. I tend toward the view that the heavier the subject, the lighter the (more effective) touch. I realize there are other ways to look at this. But for me, part of the point of entering a poem is to work out certain (big) issues for myself--with the poem's help--rather than being told, from within the poem, by the poet, what I should be thinking or feeling.
I've experimented with some cuts below--you might compare "my" version to yours. Also a few closing remarks.
: Mapping the Furnace Room
: I.
: When he was a child he had a passion for
: mapping the house, the earth: archaeology,
: de stratifying and stratifying. Imagining
: maps in his cobbled mind. He walked around
: the block with a question in his mind that
: had been forged in the furnace room of the
: house. A question like “who am I, here?” and
: upon arriving at the same point [where? on the block? or in the furnace room?], the same
: question would blaze up. An inflammatory
: question forged in the furnace of his house
: when he went to fill a pitcher with
: distilled water and clambered over a
: mountain of photo albums to arrive at the
: distiller/ [why end with weird punctuation, since you don't do it anywhere else?]
: At one point in my little brother’s dreams, I
: went back to Thunder Bay. I [was] terrified at
: arriving in an absent place, a buried gable.
: That was in my brother’s dream. This would
: add another scale to an already bat-like
: existence, where stumbling was the same as
: walking through the heat of another place.
: If one kept oneself open this long, the heat
: would either sear them, or the cold would
: make the bones release stories. Either way
: there would be stories.
[This is simply lovely.]
: The furnace room was where we kept distilled
: water, picture albums, newspaper clipping of
: my dad topping his class in Pakistan, but
: never getting a job because he wasn’t white
: enough in Pakistan. He was no gentleman,
: bric a brac from Britain, old clocks,
: telephones. The floor was cold and
: uninviting and there were skis and imaginary
: mountains as soon as he walked in—objects
: could yearn in absence and have an
: independent life when doors closed those
: doors could be an opening in another room: a
: hinge unhinge another place. Dogs could
: still run in dreams when their paws
: twitched; the furnace could die and when it
: did there would be a fight and in the
: [argument] a landscape vast as an atom[--]a
: disappearance into white maps[--]or there
: could be the tropics. And we could love
: white. And we could act our parts and
: slightly change our names, but those lost
: letters now are living in another room
: unhinged, where there is no furnace and the
: heat could kill you.
[Again, lovely.]
: The furnace was modulated by a thermostat in
: the living room where we would invite guests
: and if the fuse choked; we could light a
: fire. We had the drive to light fires to
: prove ourselves. We could win lotteries,
: even though we were winners and, if we did
: win, we would still be feudalists. At least
: father would, coming as he was, from a
: feudal ethos. He would tell mother to spend
: the money on groceries and tell her to walk
: 3 miles in the cold and carry the groceries
: back. There was the possibility of divorce.
: But she would whiten enough to be able to
: find a job.
[Asher, I would simply cut this paragraph. Part of it is too obvious--"I've made a case for my family's humanity, but really my father was a typical Pakistani-Canadian sexist pig!" Which, being extrapolated, translates as "We couldn't escape our identities." But the poem is much more complex than that--what it says about both "identity" & "escape" is more complex than mere denial. If you think you must keep this, I would start a new section with it--"and the heat could kill you" is such a strong ending for this first part, and keeps the focus on the furnace, the eponymous furnace room. But in the end, after several readings, I think I would cut this paragraph, moving directly from "and the heat could kill you" to "We could, in secret, hate our past."]
: II.
: We could, in secret, hate our past. We never
: arrived, having never left. And always we
: would leave a door open to a past to a
: bullock cart, to a servant, to congenial
: conversations in [the] living room. The grammar
: is still be there, but the words would be
: for our children to figure.
[Better verb than "figure." Otherwise, lovely.]
: We never taught them a mater tongue. We never
: tongued them, but weaned them in white.
[The "but" strikes me as simplistic, given the immense & wrenching complexity of what you are saying here. Why not "We never taught them a mater tongue. We never tongued them. We weaned them white." That seems blunter, cleaner, deadlier, and more to the heart of what this paragraph/stanza is saying.]
: There is a hut in India, charred on the side
: (now air) without a furnace, without a
: mountain. There are scattered clothes of a
: dead brother whose name we must archive at
: some point. Each place is twisting and
: winding now. Already space is auditory,
: clacking hinges, a furnace humming in the
: morning, bamboo frames (somewhere else);
: already space is a mackerel slipping from
: fingers back into a father's lost childhood.
: Already there is sugar cane clattering,
: hexing the way that a sentence could move if
: it remembered. A word dismembered is a new
: member of the family. Plates underneath the
: earth could quake or cleave and forge
: another signature over and over again. We
: shift from India to Pakistan to Canada.
: Never arriving anywhere.
[Now this is a problem stanza/paragraph for me. For one thing, it caters to Western images of India--in a way unhelpful to the poem, I would argue. We don't need exoticism here: the poem has already established its unique ethnocultural ground. If I were you, I would shorten this paragraph, revising out the more obvious markers of ethnicity or exoticism (the poem is already working on those levels). Here's a possibility:]
Already space is auditory, clacking hinges, a furnace humming in the morning, bamboo frames (somewhere else). Already space is a mackerel slipping from fingers back into sugar cane clattering, hexing the way that a sentence could move if it remembered. A word dismembered is a new member of the family. Plates underneath the earth could quake or cleave and forge another signature over and over again. We shift from India to Pakistan to Canada. There are scattered clothes of a dead brother whose name we must archive at some point. Twisting and winding.
[You might add something more after "Twisting and winding"--I think it needs one more short sentnece, for pacing's sake. But add carefully.]
: IV.
[what happened to III.?]
: Father says something like: I should have one
: more wrinkle, but I desired immortality;
: before that I had noble intensions to send
: money home to a mother who never visited,
: who disowned this part of me…when I landed
: nowhere, nowhere became busy (so I am told)
: and I was someone people imagined was
: successful. So I told my son he was useless.
: He was useless even though all he ever
: wanted me to do was to tell him something.
: What he wanted me to tell was something that
: I will never tell—
: In 1947 I was a child. In 1947, I gave a speech
: for the formation of a new
: country--Pakistan. In 1947, I will never
: grow old. In 1947 I killed a Hindu. In 1947
: I will never remember. (I think I may have
: thrown a knife in the Indus. The Indus will
: testify). The Indus is still now; it eats
: away the shore, an autoimmune disease. I
: release dead bodies from my mouth who were
: killed on a train to Jalandhar to Amritsar.
: There was confusion—now I am—someone tried
: to get on a train to Pakistan and he was
: shot dead with his leg dangling off the
: platform. These are por/traits now draped in
: white linen and the snow covers my tracks; I
: am a detour to another room. I could unwalk
: and unwalking could mean mapping backwards;
: let the snow melt and I’ll find my feet.
: Winged, perhaps.
[In these two paragraph/stanzas, I think the history lesson overpowers the poem. You try to circle back to the titular mapping at the end, but the poem is already unbalanced by this point, and I find the ultimate gesture too litle, too late. --That said, I think your impulses here are sound, and that cutting is really all this section wants. A possibility:]
Father says something like: I should have one more wrinkle, but I desired immortality; before that I had noble intensions to send money home. So I told my son he was useless.
[Yes, let this stand, bluntly, irreducibly.]
In 1947 I was a child. In 1947, I gave a speech for the formation of a new country. In 1947 I will never grow old. In 1947 I killed a Hindu.
In 1947 I may have thrown a knife in the Indus. The Indus eats away the shore, an autoimmune disease. I release dead bodies from my mouth who were killed on a train to Jalandhar to Amritsar. There was confusion—now I am—someone tried to get on a train to Pakistan and he was shot dead with his leg left dangling from the platform. These are por/traits now draped in white linen and the snow covers my tracks.
I am a detour to another room. I could unwalk and unwalking could mean mapping backwards. If I let the snow melt I’ll find my feet. Winged, perhaps.
[I'm dividing this up for pacing's sake: give the poem time to unfold. In the final analysis, I really do like the move back to the "other room," the idea that unwalking could mean mapping backwards--i.e., that one can unwalk, but one cannot unmap, one can only remap, from a different perspective. (The indissolubility of history.) I also like the penultimate reference back to Canada, and the final idea of winged feet, both hesitant and hopeful. I do think, however, that this last section is told a little too quickly: I wish there were one or two or even perhaps three more sentences here, imparting sensual, vivid information that will help link the reader not only back to the speaker's Canadian childhood (& adulthood), but also to the house, and the eponymous furnace room. Something between "I could unwalk and unwalking could mean mapping backwards" and "If I let the snow melt I’ll find my feet." It's a question of pacing and also of balance, something this poem is trying very hard to achieve--in terms of narrative, knowing (as the poem does, all along) that achieving balance in the personal or historical sense is impossible.]
**
I hope this is helpful. I think this poem is very close to feeling finished, polished, resonant: largely because (a) so much of the language is specific & vivid, and (b) the organizing conceit seems fresh in & of itself. A few quick cuts and a few select additions, and you're there.
--GC