Once I'd finished buying a majority of the books people recommended either for this project or just, in general, to read, I looked for obvious holes on my bookshelf. Was I lacking in Queer Writers? Writers from a particular continent? Translations? Form poets? I discovered there weren't enough poets of Asian descent, so I googled until I came across this Lithub article that was published shortly after a white poet, whose name doesn't deserve to be linked to or read, was published under an Asian pen name that he adopted. I ordered as many of the books as I could afford from online, and wandered the local bookstores, hoping to find some of their work there. My favorite-so-far recommendations from the article, is the combination of Don Mee Choi's The Morning News Is Exciting, and Don Mee Choi's translation of Kim Hyesoon's Sorrowtoothpaste Mirrorcream, selected by Christine Shan Shan Hou. I enjoy how she breaks out of traditional narrative with phrases or images that repeat for a while but not long enough to be mantric. My Mother Thinks I Don't Listen, My Father Thinks I Can't
The doctor points at the little race car carousel horsing up and down as the dot matrix paper spools itself from a table stack to results on the floor I press a button like a contestant on the world's most boring game show Can Adam Hear? Beep Press the button Beep a little higher Press the button Beep higher still Press the button Silence Wonder if i should be pressing the button The car drifts up? Left? I am a car Beep I drift like melody Waver and beep and Watch the road ahead The snowy white future of unplowed sound Then blank canvass of excuses Beep I am possible hearing aids Definite braces Beep Press the button Is any part of me working properly? The car drifts My mother winces My father is talking on the other side of the glass Beep Press the button Stuffed garfield lying prone next to the stack of Beep Press the button Smiling technician Beep Drifting What does this mean? This long silence between beeping My garfield wears a sweatband My so 80s garfield like a stuffed cat in an olivia newton-john video Stuffed cat from the newspaper famous for fat and lasagne This version marketed thin with aerobic outfits Probably likes mondays I am too fat Beep Press the button I can't silence right Can't smile pleasantly Press the button Maybe there was a beep there I'm no good at video games This stupid car ups and downs and Beep I think Technician grimaces I should stop looking Shut my Beep Press the button Maybe i hear better in the dark
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Aimee Nezhukumatathil's collection, Miracle Fruit (recommended by Eliel Lucero) is definitely a collection I'll be pulling a bunch of props from. Imagine Tony Hoagland's straight-forward narratives and easily accessible, often humorous images, without the clunky middle-aged-white-guy-trying-so-hard-to-be-inoffensive-that-he-sometimes-becomes-offensive angle. I'm going to have to read this collection a few more times, not because I don't understand it but because I want to be as familiar with these poems as I am with early Mark Doty poetry. I especially enjoyed Nezhukumatathil's poetry about her relationship with her parents, how she expresses her relationships without either praising or victimizing anyone. As if family history could be described with anecdotes that were funny without shame or schmaltz. The poem, "Swear Words", in particular, reminded me of a conversation with my mother that resulted in the poem below. Coming Out To Biff Tannen
My mother's face was so relieved when i told her it wasn't cigarettes i was smoking but cock The stupid boy who didn't even look up when from the playstation when they sort of met My mother whose own hair fogged with tobacco from her own new man Made some playboy style joke about smoking and flaming Something that would have been twelve pages after the centerfold Only the true bathroom aficionados would know to laugh at it I did not Well she said that went over like a pregnant pole vaulter My mother once told me not to break up with my girlfriend because a bird in the hand is worth two in the bath My mother who would argue the trivialities of my backtalk by announcing It's six of one and half of another pushed into proper idioms as though all it ever took for her to be witty was a gay son or an honest son |
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