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| 5/1/2007 | Email this article • Print this article | Bryan Thao Worra
Amy Doeun
Bryan Thao Worra was born in 1973 in Vientiane, Laos. Born into a country at war his path journeyed through a unique route. "I was adopted by an American pilot flying in Laos at the time and came to the U.S. that same year in 1973." Once in America he traveled the country in his young adult years including Montana, Alaska, Ohio, Washington DC and finally the Twin Cities. But it was the journey nearly thirty years after his adoption back to Laos to track down his family that would provide the largest shift in his life and work.
Worra went back to Laos only to discover that his biological mother was living in Modesto, CA; she too was adopted but by an Indian family living in Laos. Around that time Worra had been searching for roots within Hmong Community. The journey into the past began around college in 1991. When speaking of the time Worra commented that there were, "A lot of questions that got answered in finding my mother and a lot of questions that got opened ... it was a very enlightening experience, a major shift in how I was writing. I really became in tune that there were other people looking for the same thing."
This question of identity and searching would become a key element of Worra's writing. He talks about how he started to become a writer, there were no flashes it simply "started to emerge in Middle school." Worra was attending a Waldorf school where the focus was the "importance of communication, of storytelling, of telling what's going on in your life." Worra recalls "I was pretty good at it [writing] but I didn't think of it as a calling." During College he started looking at writing "poetry in particular" as something he might do for the rest of his life. "It didn't matter then, whether I was working in a restaurant or in Washington DC, I was still writing poetry."
In addition to writing Worra has been working steadily with non-profits. This community activism has also worked its way into his writing. Not only is he searching for a "great understanding of the relation of my writing to my culture, history, community," but he also wants to know "How does this help others?"
Worra shared his experience with a young woman in Amsterdam looking for her father back in Laos. "She was using my poetry as a means of understanding her journey. And I thought 'wow isn't that something!' It was a wonderful, special moment. It doesn't matter if you win the Nobel prize or how many awards you get when you get the chance to connect with reader ... make a fundamental difference in their life."
This fall Worra will put out his first full fledged book of poetry: The Other Side of the Eye. "This will be a surprising book of speculative poetry, close to science fiction, mythology." Worra shared that it will also be of interest to "fans of genre fiction as well." The book is also a "meditation on perspective. As you are looking out and the world is trying to look in or an extension of the old question about when the shoe is on the other foot. I want to reengage that question. What does it really mean?" Add to that the sometimes controversial perspective of the "enemy or other-angles we normally shut ourselves off from." Worra went on to say that our ability to understand others is a "Key step towards making a future we can all enjoy together."
Within that future, another question Worra combats is "How do old legends tie into the way we construct the future or ourselves. Folk tales are one of the most important parts we have left. Why are these stories so important? Who are we and where do we come from? I consider myself fortunate that we are coming to the US as a community. People are starting to learn how important it is to keep memories of where you come from and that they add a lot to this country."
Worra shared his hope for all communities, families and individuals, "Writing and all the arts were really an important part of growing up for me. Everyone should be engaged with that journey and everyone can be a part even if it's just sitting down with your family and listening to those stories. The biggest tragedy is those people that don't have the arts in their life. They go to work and come home and don't do anything."
For more information about Bryan Thao Worra you can visit his blogs and websites at:
http://thaoworra.blogspot.com
http://www.myspace.com/Thaoworra
http://membersa.aol.com/thaoworra
The Other Side of the Eye will come out in August 2007 from Sam's Dot Publishing.
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St. Paul, MN
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