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Julia Kuo's illustration of HYPHEN's Roundtable on Asian American Poetry

1. “CON-VERSE-SATIONS”
(Hyphen Magazine Roundtable with Timothy Yu, Victoria Chang, and Nick Carbo)

I appreciate the thoughtful dialogue to be had in this article with regard to Asian American poetry’s stylistic diversity, its audiences, its status both inside and outside of academia, and its current relationship to its activist roots. In particular, I think Tim Yu makes a spot-on observation that while, in the wave that immediately followed the 70′s, poets were more interested in the confessional mode than in political rhetoric, poets are now coming back towards the political, some through the overt expression of activist “creeds,” as is true in the spoken word scene, and others more quietly, by infusing their approaches to craft and subject matter with strong political undertones (Yu points to Ken Chen as an example of one such poet). “We’ve had two decades of Li-Young Lee and Marilyn Chin and these writers who really risk prominence writing about their own personal experience,” he says, but “that’s not where we are anymore.”  His claim is exemplified by the list of recommended titles the editors provide at the end of the article: from Cathy Park Hong to Barbara Jane Reyes to Ronaldo V. Wilson, the body of contemporary Asian American poets who are again engaging with the political (particularly through experimental forms) is strong, and seems to be growing.

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2. “Lyricism, Political Poetry, Social Realism, and Responsibility”
(Reflection from Barbara Jane Reyes’s blog)

Reyes poses a lot of questions here regarding the relationship between lyricism and political agency. As a result, this particular blog post serves as an excellent illustration of the complex nature of the inquiries about craft and politics that contemporary Asian American poets must negotiate in their work. Reyes’s thoughts also provide a useful first-hand perspective on what it is like to be a poet of deep political convictions whose practice of craft simultaneously engages with and resists certain established literary traditions.

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3. Forum with David Mura, Ru Freeman, & Alexander Chee
(from The Asian American Literary Review‘s first issue)

If you have access to a print copy of AALR‘s first issue, this particular discussion is very much worth checking out. Of specific interest is the debate initiated by Alexander Chee about the degree to which Asian American writers need (or ought to) “perform” their ethnic identity in their work, given the context of today’s world. Both Mura’s and Freeman’s responses, and Chee’s subsequent reply, illustrate the fraught nature of the Asian American poet’s dilemma: do we do our communities a disservice when we write from the space of the personal, without regard for the macro scope of our position as minority voices in America? Or conversely, are we untrue to ourselves if we sacrifice the personal in our craft in order to either meet outside expectations or embody the voice of a particular political cause? (Surely, there must be an equilibrium somewhere between the two, but is there, and can there ever be, one?) It’s a valid set of questions, and one that reflects a very real internal conflict that all Asian American poets must wrestle with at some point in their career.

* * *

4. Open City: Blogging Urban Change
(Produced by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop)

While the Open City project and blog is not specifically about poetry, its genesis and mission very much speak to the kind of geographical migration (away from fixed urban centers) that Greg Choy says has complicated contemporary Asian American poets’ relationship to the idea of community.  Open City seeks to document changing communities in New York—and does so in a really unique way, by bringing artists and writers into conversation with activists and academics.  Even more interesting to me is the fact that Open City, although based out of and about New York,  locates its own center in a geographically ambiguous way by enacting its documentation exclusively online. In a way, it speaks to the impulse towards transience, the shifting that Choy says is reflected in contemporary Asian American work, but in so doing, it also demonstrates that Bao Phi is far from alone in the immediacy of his approach to community-based politics. Of particular interest is Cristiana Balk’s recent post on the archives of the Basement Workshop Collective (the writing group, first formed in the 70′s, that eventually birthed the AAWW), in which she reflects on the significance of the AAWW’s historical role within NYC’s Asian American community, and the ways in which that role has evolved since then.  (As Balk astutely points out, although the AAWW is still deeply engaged in community-based work, the political and social context in which it operates today is very different from the one in which it began).

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5. Our thoughts, and yours

Finally, here’s our own editorial take (from Issue 2) on the relationship between identity and critical inquiry in terms of Asian American poetry.  We’d love to hear your thoughts, as well. Have you written about, or can you recommend additional resources that engage with this question? If so, please let us know in the comments!

Perhaps it sounds obvious, but engagement with APIA art and writing shouldn’t be limited to the Month of May:  APIA writers and artists are, of course, producing and performing and publishing new and challenging works all year round.  Here are a few recommendations to get you started for the summer (in no particular order):

1. Takeo Rivera’s GOLIATH (dir. Alex Mallory). This powerful one-act choreopoem about the implications of the Iraq War, which began life as an original student play at Stanford, is making its New York City debut tomorrow, thanks to the brilliant creative talents of its playwright (Takeo Rivera) and its director (Alex Mallory).  Takeo is one of those rising-star-types whose work is impossible to miss once it’s entered your periphery: his aesthetic roots lie in the brave activism and the rhythmically-compelling sonic and dramatic gestures of spoken word, and his critical approach to his subject matter is thoughtful, complex, and blade-sharp (he has a Masters Degree in Modern Thought & Literature and is about to enter a PhD in performance studies this fall).  Alex (GOLIATH’s director), is also a forced to be reckoned with: she’s been directing productions and workshops in New York for a couple of years now, and before that, in college, she honed her chops by directing a number of major student productions and by founding The Stanford Theatre Activist Mobilization Project.  Alex was also the major force behind bringing GOLIATH to the Big Apple.  GOLIATH has been newly revised for the New York stage and will be playing at the Robert Moss Theater for the next two weeks. If you’re living in New York City or will be in its vicinity during the next few weeks, I urge you to see this play. I t’s not something you want to miss!  [See the teaser trailer above].

2. “We Axe You to Speak”: Kartika Review’s first poetry reading.   Yes, folks.  Kartika Review’s inaugural reading event is tonight (6 to 8 pm at the SF Public Library, 100 Larkin St), and I highly recommend it (though I’m sad that I’ll have to miss it because I’m not on the West Coast).  Barbara Jane Reyes, Eddy Zheng, Margaret Rhee, Shelley Wong, and Kenji C. Liu.  Great lineup.  Landmark event.  To those of you in the Bay Area: GO.  You do not want to miss this if you can help it.

3. “I Got My”  Music Video ft. Jin [Magnetic North and Taiyo Na].  Bao Phi posted on Facebook that this “is not a music video – more like an Asian American family reunion, or maybe a map. Whatever it is, it’s a gift.”  One can’t help but agree: so many landmark APIA faces!  The video was created for APIA month, but its awesomeness, of course, extends far beyond the month of May alone.  Here’s the video:

4. The 2011 Kundiman Retreat Reading. We always recommend Kundiman events here at LR, of course, but I’m afraid that this particular recommendation also comes mixed with a bit of shameless self-promotion: Henry Leung and I are going to have the privilege of participating in this year’s retreat as first-time fellows, and we’re incredibly excited to be able to write and perform alongside both the other new fellows and the corps of returning fellows.  This year’s headlining faculty members are Kimiko Hahn, Jon Pineda, and Karen An-hwei Lee.  We’ll giving a reading at Fordham Lincoln Center on June 17th at 7 pm (I’ll try to follow up with more details later).  Come hear us on Friday, stay overnight, and catch GOLIATH’s closing performance on Saturday for an awesome NYC weekend full of APIA literary and performing arts!

5. The HYPHEN Magazine Blog. Hyphen is a hub for all things related to Asian America—and it covers everything from pop culture to food to books to politics in an incredibly sharp, politically-astute way.  I am just a little obsessed with their  feed (which I follow via Facebook). If you don’t already follow this magazine, you need to.  Stat. End of story.

6. The Open City Blog.  This is the Asian American Writer’s Workshop’s most recent online project.  In their own words:

AAWW’s OPEN CITY: Blogging Urban Change is an interdisciplinary neighborhood blog and community project coordinated by the Asian American Writers’ Workshop (AAWW).  Five commissioned writers, called Organizing Fellows, are working with community organizations and neighborhood folks in Manhattan’s Chinatown/Lower East Side (LES), Flushing, Queens, and Sunset Park, Brooklyn to collect oral histories and interviews, offer commentary about gentrification, neighborhood change, and produce new creative work around these themes.

Later on in their “About” statement, they conceptualize their project as an “urban tryptich,” and the sites of their written observations and engagement as a “constellation” of portraits that—while never complete—is ever-evolving.  I love the way that this describes both the historical and creative work of documentation, and the way in which their chosen medium (a collaborative blog) reflects these dual impulses towards collectivity and fluidity. (I also, incidentally, love their choice of url—”Open the City”—which comprises a call to action, rather than a titular placeholder). 

7. Kaya Press’s forthcoming releases: Kaya Press has recently put up two forthcoming titles for pre-order: Water Chasing Water by Koon Woon and Lament in the Night by Shosôn Nagahara.  I’m not sure exactly when these two books will actually become available to ship (the web site doesn’t say; if anyone knows this information, please do let us know and I’ll update this post to reflect it), but I’m particularly intrigued by Water Chasing Water.  The cover art is extraordinary, and the description (which includes a quote by Bob Holman in which he calls the poet “Li Po in drag, the voice of New America” and which then goes on to characterize this new collection as a continuation of “his exploration of loneliness and memory with poems and essays that seek out “‘his light / Without which existence is not detectable’”) sounds absolutely tantalizing.

7. APIA-relevant Lit Mags: I’d be amiss not to include this on my list.  Doveglion has recently put out a few new essays (in installments), and AALR‘s lovely, thick second issue came out this spring (it’s sitting at the top of my book queue, awaiting a read).  I’ve no doubt that our friends at Kartika and Cha are busily working on new issues, too.

And of course, keep your eyes open for Lantern Review Issue 3!  (Don’t forget: our current submissions period closes tomorrow at midnight EST).

AWP Annual Conference 2011

It’s hard to believe that a year has gone by since last year’s AWP Conference in Denver, but the months have indeed flown and—it’s that time again!

The editors of LR have assembled a list of panels and readings we thought might be interest to readers and writers of Asian American poetry.

Keep an eye out for us in particular at Kundiman’s panel on Friday at noon — we’ll have promotional materials and information about our off-site reading, scheduled for Friday night at 7:30 PM.

If you’re browsing the bookfair, you’ll also be able to find our materials at the Boxcar Poetry Review table.

We look forward to seeing you in DC!

The Lantern Review Guide to AWP 2010 | Events of potential interest for LR readers…

Thursday| February 3, 2011

9:00 a.m.-10:15 p.m.

R108. Mongrels, Monsters, and Mutants: New Identities in Contemporary Poetry. (Joshua Kryah, Cathy Park Hong, Bhanu Kapil, Myung Mi Kim, Prageeta Sharma)

R111. Courting Risk: A Multicultural/Multi-Genre Reading. (Khadijah Queen, Natalie Diaz, Naomi Benaron, L. Lamar Wilson, Susan Southard, Ariel Robello)

10:30 a.m.-11:45 a.m.

R125. Traveling Stanzas: Promoting Poetry and Design in the Community. (David Hassler, Nicole Robinson, Essence Cain, Scott Parsons, Valora Renicker, Natasha Rodriguez)

R138. Creative Writing Fulbright Fellowship Reading. (Katherine Arnoldi, Katrina Vandenberg, Erika M. Martinez, Gail M. Dottin, M. Thomas Gammarino, Josh Weil)

R142. If I Can’t Dance You Can Keep Your Revolution: A Reading by Six Writers of Political Engagement. (Sean Thomas Dougherty, Crystal Williams, Silvana Straw, Roger Bonair-Agard, Dora McQuaid)

R144. Beyond Print: Digital Directions in Literary Publishing. (H. Emerson Blake, Michael Archer, Jeffrey Thomson, Ram Devineni, Steven Lagerfeld)

Noon.-1:15 p.m

R146. The Poem as Ghost / Haunted Americas. (Camille Norton, Marilyn Nelson, Matthew Zapruder, Ramon Garcia, Samiya Bashir)

R150. The Rosary Effect: The Challenges of Writing from a Catholic Perspective. (Haley Lasche, Luisa Igloria, Linda Norton, Ruben Quesada, John Reimringer)

R157. Filling the Void: Growing & Sustaining Literary Communities. (Jill Pollack, Christopher Castellani, Alix Wilber, Kyle Semmel)

1:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m.

R171. Rebuilding Babel: Writers Teaching Translation. (Carrie Messenger, James Shea, Monica Mody, Johannes Göransson)

R177. A Different Kind of Hybrid: Race, Lyric, and Innovation. (Ruth Ellen Kocher, Sarah Gambito, Dawn Lundy Martin, Wendy S. Walters, Soham Patel)

3:00 p.m.-4:15 p.m.

R188. Smashing the Box: Fresh Faces and First Books by Asian American Poets. (Esther Lee, Cynthia Arrieu-King, Joseph O. Legaspi, Neil Aitken, Purvi Shah)

R189. The Art and Authenticity of Social Media: Using Online Tools to Grow a Community. (Jane Friedman, Tanya Egan Gibson, Guy Gonzalez, Bethanne Patrick, Christina Katz)

R205. Two Jews, a Catholic, a Buddhist, a Mennonite Sufi Shaman, and a ________ walk into an AWP Panel: Geography’s Influence on Writers Writing Religion and Culture. (Eric Wasserman, Ira Sukrungruang, Heather Derr-Smith, Bich Minh Nguyen, Mary Biddinger)

4:30 p.m.-5:45 p.m.

R211. Speak Peace: American Voices Respond to Vietnamese Children’s Paintings Dramatic Reading. (David Hassler, Ellen Bass, Dorianne Laux, Long Chu, Bruce Weigl, Alberto Ríos)

R229. The Colors of Nature: Culture, Identity, and the Natural World. (Lauret Savoy, Elmaz Abinader, Faith Adiele, Fred Arroyo, Debra Kang Dean, Nikky Finney)

8:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m.

R232. Keynote Address by Jhumpa Lahiri, Sponsored by George Mason University. (Jhumpa Lahiri)

Friday | February 4, 2011

9:00 a.m.-10:15 p.m.

F111. Race in the Creative Writing Workshop. (Cynthia Cruz, Michelle Y. Valladares, J. Michael Martinez, Suzanne Gardinier, Saeed Jones, Carolina Ebeid)

F112. Written Across Waters. (Patrick Rosal, Elana Bell, Aracelis Girmay, David Wright, Curtis Bauer, Tyehimba Jess)

F120. Doubled Voice: Poems and Translations. (Kristin Dykstra, Lila Zemborain, Mariela Méndez, Daniel Coudriet, Eduardo Espina)

10:30 a.m.-11:45 a.m.

F126. The Poetry of Truth: the Role of Research in Contemporary Poetics. (Cole Swensen, Susan Howe, Thalia Field, C.S. Giscombe, Jonathan Skinner)

F127. The Experimental and the International. (Hilary Plum, Karen Emmerich, Scott Esposito, Steve Dolph, Anna Moschovakis, Jill Schoolman)

F137. Page Turners: Asian American Literature in the 21st Century. (V.V. Ganeshananthan, Manijeh Nasrabadi, Amitava Kumar)

Noon.-1:15 p.m

F150. Beyond Blackout and Whiteache: Poets Rewriting Race. (Ailish Hopper, Martha Collins, Thomas Sayers Ellis, Jake Adam York, Douglas Kearney)

F157. Kundiman from Community to Communities: Reaching out from the Writers’ Retreat. (Jennifer Chang, Sarah Gambito, Margaret Rhee, Andre Yang, Neil Aitken, Tamiko Beyer)

1:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m.

F177. Finding Identity in Cultural Margins: A Reading and Discussion on Transracial Adoption. (Dana Collins, Jennifer Kwon Dobbs, Catherine McKinley, Lee Herrick, Precious Williams)

F178. Thinking Beyond the Book: The Future of Authorship and Publishing in a Transmedia World. (Jane Friedman, Guy Gonzalez, Kevin Smokler, Al Katkowsky, Christina Katz)

3:00 p.m.-4:15 p.m.

F188. The Dream the Dreamers Dreamed: A Tribute to Langston Hughes, Sponsored by Split This Rock Poetry Festival. (Sarah Browning, Derrick Weston Brown, Jericho Brown, Sonia Sanchez)

F197. Bodies Politic. (Barrie Jean Borich, Judith Barrington, Kekla Magoon, Ann Pancake, Ira SU.K.rungruang, Brian Teare)

F198. Ask Not What the Internet Can Do for You: Shifting Our Perspective on Internet Publishing as an Alternative to Major Market Publishing. (Ralph Pennel, Justin Maxwell, Ravi Shankar, Anmarie Trimble, Lizzie Stark, Max Magee)

4:30 p.m.-5:45 p.m.

F219. To Go Or Not To Go Abroad: Writers In A Global Market. (Peter Murphy, Ann Neelon, Christine Cutler, Martin Roper)

F222. A discussion and celebration of the work of the poet Ai, 1947-2010. (Lisa Lewis, Marilyn Chin, Major Jackson, Jeff Simpson, Eavan Boland, Charles Fort)

F224. Poet/Editors on Inclusivity and Race. (Rich Villar, Dan Chiasson, Don Share, Carmen Giménez Smith, Craig Santos Perez, Barbara Jane Reyes)

8:30 p.m.-10:00 p.m.

F228. A Reading by Junot Díaz, Sponsored by Georgia College & State University / Arts & Letters. (Junot Díiaz)

F229. Academy of American Poets Presents Claudia Rankine and Charles Wright.

Saturday | February 5, 2011

9:00 a.m.-10:15 p.m.

S104. Poetry of Resistance: Poets Take on Reasonable Suspicion (Arizona SB 1070). (Francisco X. Alarcón, Lorna Dee Cervantes, Odilia Galván-Rodríguez, Scott Maurer, Abel Salas, Hedy Garcia Trevino)

S109. Innovations, Migrations, and Translations: Contemporary Poetry in Tokyo. (Judy Halebsky, Kyong Mi Park, Yuka Tsukagoshi, Sawako Nakayasu, Holly Thompson, Mariko Nagai)

S115. Bangladeshi Fiction: A New Direction in South Asian Literature. (Ameena Meer, Gemini Wahhaj, Sharbari Ahmed, Jalal Alamgir, Javed Jahangir

S119. A Zephyr Press Poetry Reading with Bakhyt Kenjeev and Ouyang Jianghe. (Leora Zeitlin, Bakhyt Kenjeev, Jianghe Ouyang, J. Kates, Austin Woerner)

10:30 a.m.-11:45 a.m.

S124. Lucille’s Gifts: A Tribute to Lucille Clifton, Poet and Teacher. (KC Culver, Michael S. Glaser, Theresa Sotto, Jayme McLellan, Lauri Watkins)

S140. The Poetry-Prose Dynamic, Internationally. (Carrie Etter, Toi Derricotte, Molly Peacock, Tim Liardet, Jill Bialosky)

Noon.-1:15 p.m

S145. Poetry as Multimedia Documentary. (Susan B.A. Somers-Willett, Kwame Dawes, Erika Meitner, Natasha Trethewey, Ted Genoways)

S159. The Asian American Writers’ Workshop 20th-Anniversary Reading. (Ken Chen, Kimiko Hahn, Patrick Rosal, Jennifer Tseng, Marie Lee, Ed Lin)

S160. A Voice of Her Own: A Reading. (Reese Okyong Kwon, Alexander Chee, Tiphanie Yanique, Marie MutsU.K.i Mockett, Hasanthika Sirisena)

S162. Transformative Dialogues Between Writers of Color. (Alexs Pate, Quincy Troupe, David Mura, M. Evelina Galang)

1:30 p.m.-2:45 p.m.

S170. Undivided: Poet as Public Citizen, Sponsored by Split This Rock Poetry Festival. (Melissa Tuckey, Toi Derricotte, Martín Espada, Carolyn Forché, Mark Nowak)

S174. Lyric Poetry and the Archive. (Tung-Hui Hu, Brenda Hillman, Ann Fisher-Wirth, Brent Armendinger, Cody Walker, Megan Pugh)

S175. Kin: Mixed-Genre of Color. (Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Linda Hogan, Deborah A. Miranda, Ching-In Chen, Nancy Agabian, vaimoana litia makakaufaki niumeitolu)

3:00 p.m.-4:15 p.m.

S190. The Youth Voice Amplified: Poetry and Social Justice in the Classroom and Community. (Quraysh Ali Lansana, Georgia A. Popoff, Jackie Warren-Moore, Avery R. Young, Nandi Comer)

S197. Faith vs. the Avant-Garde: Spirituality and Innovation in Contemporary American Poetry. (G.C. Waldrep, Kazim Ali, Bhanu Kapil, Catherine Imbriglio)

S205. How a Poem Happens: Five Poets Explore How Their Poems Were Made. (Brian Brodeur, Bob Hicok, Dorianne Laux, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Eric Pankey, Adrian Blevins)

4:30 p.m.-5:45 p.m.

S213. Outsiders Writing the Outside: A Reading of Wilderness Poetry by Women, Queer, and Minority Writers. (Keetje Kuipers, Aimee Nezhukumatathil, G.E. Patterson, Paisley Rekdal, Brian Teare, Ross Gay

S214. Story, Telling: Innovative Poetic Narratives. (Kathleen Ossip, Jennifer Moxley, Kate Greenstreet, Dawn Lundy Martin, Peter Covino, Susan Briante)

S220. Unembarrassed Poetry. (James Cihlar, Kristin Naca, Brenda Shaughnessy, Richard Siken, Alex Lemon)

These poets are part of a project called PUP, “Poets in Unexpected Places” or “Pop-Up Poets.” They do exactly what their name implies: pop up in unexpected public locations (like the subway, the Botanic Gardens, a supermarket) to read poetry.  You can read about some of their experiences on their blog, in which they detail stories of people’s reactions to their performances.  My favorite, I think, is their most recent post about a Q-train ride in which one of the riders got up and started dancing, while the rest of the car clapped and cheered!  Such unexpected joy in the middle of a city that is known for its public mask of anonymity (the summer that I worked in Manhattan, we were distinctly advised by our HR trainers to put on a confident, stand-offish “subway face” while riding public transit in order to avoid sticking out).  I love the idea of bringing poetry to public spaces at unexpected times, of incorporating it into the everyday rhythms of life in playful and soul-filled ways.  PUP thrives on the idea that poetry is (and may at any time) be all around us, and that its wild spontaneity and beauty is something to be celebrated, all day, every day.

I love the idea of bringing PUP-style projects to other parts of the nation, too.  Watching the video got me all revved up imagining what it would be like to have a PUP style group in quiet little South Bend, IN, or in my parents’ tiny hometown in NJ—wouldn’t it be cool if  poets popped up in the middle of  a bank lobby, or on the South Shore line or Riverline, or in front of the public library, or in the middle of a mall or a cafe or bar?  Or even in the grocery lines at Costco or Meijer?  Or in the different departments?  You could have poets in all the aisles!  Have you ever participated in a guerilla-style poetry project?  If so, please do share your experience with us; we’d love to hear your stories!

LR Goodies for AWP 2010: Bookmarks & Handmade Mini-Books

As we mentioned last week, the LR editors are gearing up for the 2010 AWP Conference with great excitement.  For those of you who will also be going, we thought we’d put together a list of panels and readings that we thought might be of special interest to readers and writers of Asian American poetry.  Come look for us, in particular, at Kundiman’s Thursday panel and Wednesday off-site reading (co-sponsored with Cave Canem).  If you check out the bookfair, you’ll also be able to find us (and our materials) at the Kundiman/Alice James Books table.

The Lantern Review Guide to AWP 2010
Recommended events of potential interest to LR readers

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Wednesday

Off-Site Events:

7:00PM-10:00PM AHSAHTA / OMNIDAWN READING
Location: The Magnolia Hotel Ballroom, 17th & Stout (Only 3 blocks from the Colorado Convention Center.)
Cost: No charge for the event.
Please join Ahsahta Press and Omnidawn Publishing for a reading. The readers will be: Christopher Arigo, Susan Briante, Dan Beachy-Quick, Maxine Chernoff & Paul Hoover, Gillian Conoley, Ben Doller, Lisa Fishman, Noah Eli Gordon, Richard Greenfield, Janet Holmes, Hank Lazer, Laura Moriarty, Rusty Morrison, G.E. Patterson, Craig Santos Perez, Bin Ramke, Don Revell, Elizabeth Robinson, Heather Sellers, Heidi Lynn Staples, Michelle Taransky.

8:00PM-11:00PM Cave Canem/Kundiman Reading & Salon
Location: Mercury Cafe, 2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205; (303) 294-9281
Cost: $3 suggested donation — to benefit Cave Canem & Kundiman (no one turned away for lack of funds)
Website: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=474228325544&ref=ss
Join the Cave Canem & Kundiman Families for a Reading Featuring Toi Derricotte, Sarah Gambito, Cornelius Eady, Oliver de la Paz, Dawn Lundy Martin & Kazim Ali + a salon featuring Cave Canem and Kundiman fellows & family (bring a poem to share!)  Emceed by Ching-In Chen & Tara Betts.

Thursday

9 AM to 10:15 AM

R117. Decolonial Poetics: Womanist, Indigenous, and Queer Poets of Color on the Art of Decolonization. (Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano, Susan Deer Cloud, Ching-In Chen, Lisa Suhair Majaj)

R121. The Online MFA: An Innovative Alternative to the Resident and Low-Resident MFA. (Lex Williford, Daniel Chacón, Sasha Pimentel Chacón, José de Piérola)

10:30 AM to 11:45 AM

R124. Bollywood, Bullets, and Beyond: The Poetry of South Asian America. (Summi Kaipa, Pireeni Sundaralingam, Ravi Shankar, Bhanu Kapil, Subhashini Kaligotla, Monica Ferrell)

Noon to 1:15 PM

R148. Kundiman: Love Songs and Leaps of Faith. (Vikas Menon, Jennifer Chang, Matthew Olzmann, Sarah Gambito, Rick Barot, R.A. Villanueva)

R155. Women & Nature, Thirty Years Later: Our Evolving Otherness. (Rusty Morrison, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Sarah Gridley, M.L. Smoker, Melissa Kwasny, Alena Hairston)

R167. Tribute to Mahmoud Darwish. (Fady Joudah, Yusef Komunyakaa, Marilyn Hacker, Michael Collier, Khaled Mattawa)

1:30 PM to 2:45 PM

R170. Wesleyan University Press Poetry Reading. (Stephanie Elliott, Roberto Tejada, Adrian Blevins, Musharraf Ali Farooqi, Tan Lin, Kazim Ali)

R172. CLMP Panel—Lit Mags in the Classroom: Literary Journals in Creative Writing Curricula. (Jay Baron Nicorvo, Carolyn Kuebler, Thisbe Nissen, David Lynn, Kimiko Hahn)

R176. (WITS Alliance) Journey to Identity: Teaching Creative Writing to Immigrant Students. (Long Chu, Jose Luis Benavides, Margot Fortunato Galt, Ellen Hagen, Merna Ann Hecht, Sehba Sarwar)

R184. How to Start Your Own Online Literary Magazine: Five Editors Tell All. (Rebecca Morgan Frank, Michael Archer, Thom Didato, Gregory Donovan, Ravi Shankar)

R189. Poetry, Race, Ethnicity: A Conversation. (Lynne Thompson, Martha Collins, Susan Deer Cloud, Rigoberto Gonzalez, Fady Joudah, Frank X Walker)

4:30 PM to 5:45 PM

R223. Orbiting Salt: A Quarterly West / Western Humanities Review / Barrelhouse / Versal Reading. (Dawn Lonsinger, Cris Mazza, Alan Michael Parker, Sawako Nakayasu, Blake Butler)

R234. The Poetry Society of America Centennial Celebration: 100 Years of American Poetry. (Alice Quinn, Matthew Zapruder, Jean Valentine, B.H. Fairchild, Joy Harjo, Kimiko Hahn, Cyrus Cassells, Diane Wakoski, Gary Young)

Off-Site Events:

8:00PM-10:00PM Alice James Books and Four Way Books Reading
Location: Common Grounds Downtown Coffee, 1550 17th St, Denver, CO
Cost: free
“Lightning Flash” readings by Alice James Books and Four Way Books authors: Kathleen Sheeder Bonanno, Joanna Fuhrman, Frank Giampietro, Kevin Goodan, Tom Healy, Meg Kearney, David Dodd Lee, Lesle Lewis, Mihaela Moscaliuc, Jamie Ross, Chad Sweeney, Sandy Tseng, and Monica Youn

8:00PM-9:30PM Wild Lives / Raucous Pens: Readings from Terrain.org and Hawk & Handsaw
Location: Adirondacks Room, The Tivoli at Auraria Campus
Cost: Free
Website: http://www.terrain.org/docs/…
Terrain.org editor Simmons Buntin and Hawk & Handsaw editor Kathryn Miles host short readings by Patrick Burns, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Scott Elliott, James Engelhardt, Suzanne Frischkorn, Andrew Gottlieb, Luisa Igloria, John T. Price, Ben Quick, Suzanne Roberts, Jeffrey Thomson, and Arianne Zawartjes. Reception featuring free beer/wine begins upstairs at 7:30 p.m.

Friday

9:00 AM to 10:15 AM

F111. Hybrid Aesthetics and Its Discontents. (Mark Wallace, Arielle Greenberg, Craig Santos Perez, Michael Theune, Megan Volpert)

F118. One Never Know, Do One?: Identity vs. Aesthetics in Contemporary Poetry of Color. (Adrian Matejka, Sherwin Bitsui, Douglas Kearney, Matthew Shenoda, Lyrae Van Clief-Stefanon)

10:30 AM to 11:45 AM

F127. Translating LGBTQ Writers and Writing. (John Keene, Jen Hofer, Timothy Liu, Nathalie Stephens)

F137. Justice, Community, and The Republic of Poetry. (David Mura, Martín Espada, Tara Betts)

Noon to 1:15 PM

F148. Writing South Asia—Issues of Representation and Identity. (Samrat Upadhyay, Rishi Reddi, Ru Freeman, Anis Shivani, Gemini Wahhaj, Oindrila Mukherjee)

F161. West By Midwest: Women Writers Crossing the 100th Meridian. (Vivian Wagner, Kyoko Mori, Debra Marquart, Joy Passanante, Jane Varley, Jonis Agee)

F163. The Prince of the Face: Translating Mystical Poetry from Middle Eastern Sources. (Sheri Allen, Sidney Wade, Willis Barnstone, Haider Al-Kabi, Betty De Shong Meador)

F165. Poets as Legislators: Bearing Visions in Private and in Public. (Luisa Igloria, Cathryn Hankla, Anita Skeen, Meg Kearney, Daniel Tobin, Sandra Meek)

F169. Gurlesque Poetry: A Reading. (Lara Glenum, Cathy Wagner, Dorthea Lasky, Danielle Pafunda, Cathy Park Hong, Elizabeth Treadwell)

1:30 PM to 2:45 PM

F191. Honoring the Sandhill Crane Migration Annual Literary Tribute. (Allison Hedge Coke, Sherwin Bitsui, Cristina Eisenberg, Wang Ping, Jim Wilson, Laura Tohe)

3:00 PM to 4:15 PM

F194. From the Fishouse: A Reading of Poems that Sing, Rhyme, Resound, Syncopate, Alliterate, and Just Plain Sound Great. (Jeffrey Thomson, Major Jackson, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, Erika Meitner, Oliver de la Paz, Adrian Matejka)

F198. Immigrant Poetry: Aesthetics of Displacement. (Gene Tanta, Jenny Boully, Johannes Goransson, Ramona Uritescu-Lombard, Andrei Guruianu, Uche Nduka)

F202. University of Utah Faculty and Student Reading. (Paisley Rekdal, Lance Olsen, Melanie Rae Thon, David Baker, Lynn Kilpatrick, Connie Voisine)

4:30 PM to 5:45 PM

F223. Transnational Identities: Asian American Writers & Asia. (Bryan Thao Worra, Ed Bok Lee, David Mura, Yuko Taniguchi, Wang Ping, Kao Kalia Yang)

F224. In a Place of Bones: Indigenous Place-Based Writing. (Ahimsa Timoteo Bodhrán, Linda Hogan, Deborah A. Miranda, ku’ualoha ho’omanawanui, Elaine Chukan Brown, Lorenzo Herrera y Lozano)

Off-Site Events:

6:00PM-10:00PM Counterpath Press and Letter Machine Editions Reading
Location: Mercury Cafe, 2199 California Street, Denver, CO 80205; (303) 294-9281
Cost: Free; Full restaurant and bar
Featuring: Brenda Hillman, Laynie Browne, Forrest Gander, Mei-Mei Berssendbrugge, Carol Snow, Barbara Freeman, Cole Swensen, Gillian Conoley, Stephen Ratcliffe, Martha Ronk, Paul Hoover, Travis Nichols, Aaron Kurin, Juliana Leslie, Farid Matuk, Peter Gizzi.

6:30PM-8:30PM CSU Poetry Center & The University of Akron Press Poetry Reading
Location: Paris on the Platte Cafe & Bar
Cost: Free admission, Cash Bar
Please join us for readings by Allison Benis White, John Bradley, Ashley Capps, Oliver de la Paz, Heather Derr-Smith, David Dodd Lee, Elyse Fenton, John Gallaher, Beckian Fritz Goldberg, Helena Mesa, Mathias Svalina, & Allison Titus. Come by table A22 to pick up your invitation and map.

7:30PM Switchback Books hosts Artifice Mag, Coconut, and Tarpaulin Sky Press
Location: Delaney’s Bar/Celtic Tavern, 1801 Blake St.
Website: http://www.celtictavern.com/modules/wfchannel/
Readings by Simone Muench, Monica de la Torre, Kathleen Rooney, Gina Myers, Davis Schneiderman, Marisa Crawford, Kim Gek Lin Short, Andrew Farkas, Shelly Taylor, David Welch, Tim Jones-Yelvington, Kimiko Hahn, Bruce Covey, Jen Tynes, and Amber Nelson. $3 beer specials and 17 beers on tap.

9:00PM-MIDNIGHT WILLA (Women in Letters and Literary Arts) Goes Live: A Benefit Evening of Burlesque, Literature and Roller Derby
Location: The Denver Press Club, 1330 Glenarm Place
Cost: $10
Burlesque Performers Vivienne VaVoom & Cora Vette, both of Black Box Burlesque, join Readers Kim Adinozzio, Mary Akers, Erin Belieu, Ana Bozicevic, Jami Brandli, Barrie Jean Borich, Nickole Brown, Kara Candito, Mary Cappello, Ashley Capps, Jennine Capó Crucet, Carolyn Forche, Ru Freeman, Lara Glenum, Cathy Park Hong, Olivia Johnson, Lynn Kilpatrick, Amy King, Dorianne Laux, Roxanne Banks Malia, April Manteris, Cate Marvin, Carol Muske-Dukes, Antonya Nelson, Danielle Pafunda, Ann Pancake, Jennifer Park, Carmen Gimenez Smith, Patricia Smith, Susan Steinberg, Cheryl Strayed, Ann Townsend, Emily Warn, and Leni Zumas.

Saturday

9:00 to 10:15 AM

S103. Don’t You Hear This Hammer Ring? Socially Engaged Poetry in the Age of Obama. (Sarah Browning, Regie Cabico, Melissa Tuckey, Naomi Ayala, John Murillo)

S105. Siren Songs From Across the Seas: Women Poets in Translation. (Henry Israeli, Forrest Gander, Susanna Nied, Sawako Nakayasu, Kristin Dykstra)

10:30 AM to 11:45 AM

S129. From Bombs to Bindis: Trends and Tensions in S. Asian Diaspora Writing. (Mary Anne Mohanraj, Shilpa Agarwal, Roohi Choudhry, Minal Hajratwala, Mrigaa Sethi, Padma Viswanathan)

S131. Writing Hawaii’s Settler History. (Keala Francis, Ida Yoshinaga, Brandy Nalani McDougall)

S132. Re-writing America: Complicating the Poetics of Identity. (Neelanjana Banerjee, Hayan Charara, Samantha Thornhill, Ching-In Chen, Tim Hernandez, Summi Kaipa)

S138. jubilat 10th Anniversary Reading. (Robert Casper, Dara Wier, Lisa Olstein, Jen Bervin, Peter Gizzi, Cathy Park Hong)

Noon to 1:15 PM

S145. Reading from The Ecco Anthology of World Poetry. (Susan Harris, Ilya Kaminsky, Valzhyna Mort, Ellen Dore Watson, Zhang Er)

S155. The Western Landscape in Contemporary American Poetry. (Haines Eason, Oliver de la Paz, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Gabrielle Calvocoressi, C. Dale Young, Paisley Rekdal)

S164. Nation of Immigrants?: Spoken Word Artists Question the World. (Thien-bao Phi, Tish Jones, Diego Vazquez, Marcie Rendon, Robert Farid Karimi)

1:30 PM to 2:45 PM

S165. Writing Beyond Race. (Veronica Gonzalez, Lara Stapleton, Gina Apsotol, Carl Hancock Rux)

S167. Both Sides of the Mouth: Teaching Bilingual Workshops. (Cheryl Klein, Daniel Chacón, Tim Hernandez, Naomi Hirahara)

S168. No More Lip Service: Three Successful Community Literary Programs. (Ross Talarico, Thien-bao Phi, Douglas Unger)

3:00 PM to 4:15 PM

S204. Poets in the World: Building Diverse Communities through Independent Poetry Centers, Blogs, and Radio. (Norton Camille, Barbara Jane Reyes, Oscar Bermeo, Jan Beatty, Tim Kahl, Susan Kelly-DeWitt)

S205. University of Arizona Poetry Center’s 50th Anniversary Reading. (Gail Browne, Carolyn Forché, Mónica de la Torre, Alison Hawthorne Deming, Peter Gizzi, Akilah Oliver)

4:30 PM to 5:45 PM

S207. Poetry and New Media: A Users Guide. (Katharine Coles, Wyn Cooper, Kate Gale, Alberto Ríos, Monica Youn)

* * *

Here is a short roundup of some broadsides I found that feature Asian American poetry:

Naomi Shihab Nye – “Boy and Egg”
[One of a series of free printables from the Poetry Foundation's web site]

Li-Young Lee – “Every Circle Wider”
[Available from the Poetry Center of Chicago]

Jeffrey Yang – “Wolf Shadow”
[Available from the Center for Book Arts in NYC]

Agha Shahid Ali – “Ghazal”
[Available from the Center for Book Arts in NYC]

Oliver de la Paz – “If Given” and “Fury”
[Available on his web site]

Barbara Jane Reyes – “Polyglot Incantation”
[Available from Zoland Poetry]

Has your poetry ever been made into a broadside?  Do you create broadsides?  We’d love to hear from you!  Please leave a comment to tell us about your experiences.

Clockwise from Top L: ArtScope Screenshot, Detail of I Gusti Putu Hardana Putra's "Unvoice" (Carrying Across Exhibit), "Camp Scene" (Art of Gaman Exhibit)

Asian American Art: Gallery Exhibits

The Art of Gaman – Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942-1946
Smithsonian American Art Museum | Renwick Gallery (Washington, D.C.)
March 5, 2010 — January 30, 2011

Carrying Across (curated by Yvonne Lung)
[Multimedia exhibition exploring acts of interpretation and translation]
Asian Arts Intiative (Philadelphia)
Feburayr 19, 2010 — April 30, 2010

Paj Ntaub: Stories of Hmong in Washington
Wing Luke Asian Museum (Seattle)
March 5, 2010 — October 17, 2010

Here and Now: Chapter III — Towards Transculturalism (Chinese Artists in NY)
Museum of Chinese in America (New York City)
February 11, 2010 — March 28, 2010

Poetry in the Galleries

de Young Poetry Series
Part of the”Cultural Encounters: Friday Nights at the de Young” program hosted by the San Francisco’s de Young Museum.  This month, the series is being hosted by Michael Ondaatje and will take place on March 19th. (See our Community Calendar for more details).

Claim the Block: A WritersCorps Reading Series
Student artists from the WritersCorps San Francisco program present their work at a number of gallery venues around the city.  March’s installment will take place at the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

Online Image Archives & Tools

New York Public Library Digital Gallery
A truly useful collection of over 700,000 archival images — you’ll find book illustrations, art prints, photographs, postcards, images from magazines and newspapers, and more.  We did a simple search for “chinatown” and came up with 256 really interesting hits.

SFMOMA ArtScope
If you look at nothing else in this post, you must check out this super-cool art browsing tool.  The SF Museum of Modern Art has made it possible for you to dynamically explore 4,775 individual images from their collection simply by zooming, dragging, and clicking.  Browsing through the wall of images as it expands and contracts in response to your mouse-clicks is a completely mesmerizing experience, not to mention a great free way to familiarize yourself with the museum’s collection.  Adobe Flash Player is required to view the site.

Magazines

poet’sPicturebook
Curated by Marne Kilates, this online journal focuses on ekphrastic poetry, presenting poems artfully alongside the images which inspired them.  Of note: the most recent issue includes work by Luisa Igloria, whose thoughts on ekphrasis were featured in a recent post of ours.

Ekphrasis
Ekphrasis, says its web site, “is a poetry journal looking for well-crafted poems, the main content of which addresses individual works from any artistic genre . . . Acceptable ekphrastic verse transcends mere description: it stands as transformative critical statement, an original gloss on the individual art piece it addresses.”  Ekphrasis is available by subscription.  Submissions are accepted via postal mail.

Melbourne-Based Retort Magazine

We were recently given a heads’ up about this fascinating interview in Retort Magazine that Singaporean poet Desmond Kon conducted with Fiona Sze-Lorrain (whose book, Water the Moon, we reviewed earlier this year).  [Thanks, D.K., for the link!]

Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Here’s an excerpt (Sze-Lorrain on place and geography in her work):

Places permeate my writing since you may say that I am someone of travels — in exile and displacement, so-called. I’ve traveled, yes, and at times, without a choice, but I am never a tourist. Pierre Nora sees places as sites of memories; I see places as moments and years. I thought that writing about places as memories risks falling into the trap of flat sentimentalism, or a re-invention of the past. Unlike most artists in exile who eschew geographical precision, I look towards the porosity of borders — both physical and temporal — for inspiration. Otherwise, places are no different from identities, and any kind of identity will never fail to imprison souls.

To read the rest of the interview, click here.   Also worth checking out is the latest issue of Cerise Press, a magazine that Sze-Lorrain creates and edits with Karen Rigby and Sally Molini. It’s an intriguing space that beautifully mixes translation, art, and lyric — and is well worth the read.

The experience of these [internment] camps radically affected the writing of issei and nisei women poets.  Before the war, issei values of feminine propriety confined women to the household and prohibited public discourse; the experience of the camps, however, blurred men and women into a shared common world. (134)

Though Blackmer makes an interesting claim about the impact of changed spatial and social relations on “the writing of issei and nisei women poets,” I was most intrigued by the mere existence of the term “issei and nisei women poets.”  I was struck for two reasons.  First, I realized that I know virtually nothing of “issei and nisei women poets,”  nor of the writing they did before or after the war.  Second, to see the phrase “the writing of issei and nisei women poets” in print, in an academic literary journal, was shocking.  I had never thought of “the issei poet,” or “the nisei poet” as real figures in the history of American literature though I had certainly wondered what they might say.  It goes without saying that this realization has prompted me to search out some of these key figures.

Mitsuye Yamada, who wrote the book Camp Notes and Other Poems (Shameless Hussy Press, 1976),* during and shortly after the internment, is one of the poets mentioned in Blackmer’s article, whose voice comes to the reader with great force and a radical vision.  In the poem ”Neutralize” she writes:

white floors walls ceiling white
white chairs tables sink white
only when I close my eyes do I see
beyond the white windowless walls

The poem, which opens with an epigraph stating “poetry… / has been my spiritual guide / throughout my incarceration,” details the speaker’s resistance to an outside “They’s” attempt to “kill / the sentient being in me,” that is, the seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, and hearing self.  Her strong and forceful diction, repetition of the word “white,” and conflation of objects, surfaces, and imagined/actual realities makes for a compelling first encounter with a group of writers with whom I am only just becoming acquainted.

One of Yamada’s earlier poems from Camp Notes, which I also found compelling, constructs an issei voice through the use of fragmented, non-standard English free verse.  I found this gratifying because this mode validates some of my own experiments with Japanese American “dialect” or “accented” writing.  An excerpt from “Marriage Was a Foreign Country”:

When we land the boat full
of new brides
lean over railing
with wrinkled glossy pictures
they hold inside hand
like this
so excited
down there a dock full of men
they do same thing
hold pictures
look up and down
like this
they find faces to
match pictures.

In this poem, the speaker’s gaze is turned forward toward a future in America, a country as foreign to the new bride as that of marriage (as indicated by the title).  The speaker, freshly delivered to an alien shore and tinged by her departure from Japan, brings with her the language of a person newly acquiring a foreign tongue.  Returning to this voice, or listening to the traces of it embdedded still in the Japanese American community, is a curious reversal of history and generational assimilation, and therefore one I find tremendously interesting.

I appreciate Yamada’s poem because it does for me something that I am unable to do for myself: imagine what a voice shrouded by time and, to a certain extent, cultural taboo (as many Japanese Americans have, through the generations after WWII, worked to shed their accents and mother tongue), might sound like.  Because much of Japanese America’s history has been an effort to make the assertion that “I am an American” (as seen in the Dorothea Lange photograph below), to evoke a “non-American,” or non-standard English voice is a risky move.  As always, more to come…

Photo by Dorothea Lange, courtesy of The Bancroft Library. "Following evacuation orders, this store, at 13th and Franklin Streets, was closed. The owner... placed the I AM AN AMERICAN sign on the store front on December 8, the day after Pearl Harbor."

____________________________________________________

* Now available as Camp Notes and Other Writings (Rutgers University Press, 1998)

Recently I’ve become interested in nineteenth century japonisme, a strain of ”Japan-fever” that Akane  Kawakami, author of Travellers’ Visions: French Literary Encounters With Japan, 1887-2004, describes as a “passing Parisian fad [which] became an important part of the creative imagination of major artists, composers and writers of the period.”  One of these writers, French naval officer Pierre Loti, became widely popular for his novel about a Japanese geisha named Madame Chrysanthemum, whom he arranged to “marry” for a six-month period while stationed in Nagasaki.  In Loti’s fictionalized Japan, Madame Chrysanthemum and her fellow geisha figure as lovely, decorative objects, gaily painted and largely ornamental features of a miniature world filled with dozens of other decorative objects: painted fans, silk screens, teacups and patterned kimono.  Japan is a world of surfaces and puzzling encounters with Japanese women the size of dolls: “yellow-skinned, cat-eyed,” and “no larger than a boot.”  At one point in Madame Chrysanthemum, the narrator remarks that Chrysanthemum is so lovely and “dragonfly”-like, sleeping on her tatami mat, that he would prefer her to always remain in such an attitude of repose—he finds her much more interesting that way.

Initially a bit stunned (and horrified) by Loti’s representations of Madame Chrysanthemum and her counterparts, I began researching the critical conversations that have surrounded this text over the last few decades, and found that opinion is divided between those who condemn the novel for its overt colonial and ”sexploitative” agenda, and those who read with a bit more sympathy for Loti’s subtle treaments of japonisme. My stance?  As yet undecided.  I am somewhat unconvinced by arguments in favor of Loti’s veiled sympathies for his Japanese subjects, but remain open to them nonetheless.  At the very least, I find his representations fascinating and, more importantly, telling of the prevailing attitudes held by many in nineteenth-century France while japonisme was all the rage.  The culture’s fascination with “Japan” (or rather, its imagined “Japoniste” equivalent), the aesthetic, and the surfaces of things, bear interesting implications for contemporary Asian American poets (particularly those who, like myself, are invested in revitalizing the “East”-”West” encounter in terms that are more relevant to the current moment, but also informed by the literary histories of the past).

My primary question in engaging this novel is as follows.  In light of the literary history of encounters between the “West” and the “East,” how do I, as a somewhat oddly positioned hybrid of these two imagined spaces and cultures, follow in the tradition of what has come before?  As an English-language poet, I fashion language in the tradition of Western writers and thinkers that, paradoxically, include men like Pierre Loti; as a Japanese American, however, I fashion thought and sense in what I fancy to be patterned at least to some extent (yes, my language here bogs heavily with modifiers!) after my Japanese ancestry… but then again, perhaps this all just japonisme!

Attempt #1: write a poem that casts in exaggerated terms that which the Orientalist (and his 21st century compatriots) strive so hard to accomplish.  He wishes to parrot Japanese female voices?  Then dress the man in geisha garb! Paint his face white, rouge his cheeks, and lash his belly around and around with an obi a mile long.  My attempt at this literal enactment of the japoniste project was… amusing.  The effect was odd, incongruous, yes, but amusing nonetheless.  I particularly liked the image of an oversized, cross-dressing geisha tripping into a tea room, kneeling demurely before his patron, and deftly flicking his wrist to reveal, as Arthur Golden would say in “his” Memoirs of a Geisha, softly scented skin calculated to delight, but nothing more.

Attempt #2: bring the man home to meet the family.  Yes, it’s true, I’ve written a poem in which Pierre Loti appears at one of my family gatherings as the newest grandson-in-law.  Blessed with an endless parade of granddaughters (all lovely fourth-generation Japanese American girls), in recent years my extended family has been steadily growing due to an increasing number of marriages.  The appearance of a new cousin-in-law (or prospective cousin-in-law) at the annual oshogatsu, or New Year’s celebration, is no new thing.  But the appearance of a French japoniste from the nineteenth century… now that’s something new.  What, I asked myself, would happen if the next cousine brought home a French naval officer with japoniste predilections—and not just any French naval officer, but Pierre Loti himself, with his oddly constructed visions of Japan, his tales of Madame Chrysanthemum, and penchant for all femmes jaune.

The poem is overtly anachronistic (and a bit absurd), but this, I think, is part of its project.  Of course, it sets out to do much more than it could ever possibly accomplish, but my sense is that it poses some interesting questions.  By wrinkling the fabric of time, culture, and geography, what strange new juxtapositions can the artist render in imaginative language?  This, after all, is at the heart of  japonisme and those striving to recast it in more cosmopolitan terms.

Attempt #3: forget the entire thing.  Abandon the Orientalist project; instead write about tulips.  I tried this, and was unsuccessful.  Japonisme-inflected words like  like “consorting” and “lovely” kept creeping into my language, and I found the tulips functioning as thinly veiled geisha girls, decorative objects waving gaily at the reader from across my living room floor.  Are the tropes and conventions of japonisme really so persistent as that?

This, of course, is not where the project ends.  If you’re interested in this tradition of Western literary encounters with “The Orient,” or know something that I have not yet discovered, please comment with your insights and/or perspectives.  My exploration will doubtless continue, as will my poetic engagement with such odd occurrences in Western literature as Madame Chrysanthemum.