Beep Press The Button

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