Jean Vengua: On Stewardship and Curation
To be a Filipino American writer, whether or not one is aware of the historical and political implications, is to dip into a stream of writing and speeches produced by Filipinos from just before the beginning of the 20th century, through the 1920s and 1930s, up to and through World War II. The authors include, [...]
Reginald Dwayne Betts: A Line From the Nicest MC
“The only psalms I read was on the arms of my niggas” Jay Z I borrow from hip-hop all the time, if not content than approach. I write a rhyme sometimes won’t finish for days,1 as the line goes, which is to say I revise. I rework, re-see, re-think. And right now I’m reconsidering how [...]
Kenji C. Liu: Five Views of the Same Poetry: Situating the Self
My father’s childhood village in Taiwan was small when I first visited as a child. It had two dirt roads. During the bai se kong bu—White Terror—hundreds of thousands were disappeared or executed. Now it’s a city, and those dirt roads are main thoroughfares in a democracy. The house is surrounded by buildings instead of fields, instead of spies.
Jerrold Shiroma: From Piecebook
“Graffiti is all the same line, the same feeling, even though different people use it for a different purpose. It’s to be seen by the people. Graffiti is worked out on the street. All this stuff is on the street.”
Sesshu Foster: Notes on Good (“New & Improved!”) Poetry
Several people asked whether their poems were “good.”
Is your life good? What do you do with it, and how do you feel about that?
Is your breathing good, is it working for you? When you do it, it fulfills its functions, doesn’t it? I’d suggest that poems serve you, too. Like breathing, even if you forget about paying attention to its regulation and effects.
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