2016 Asian American Poetry Books and Chapbooks

Following a month of research and asking over 388 Asian American poets, scholars, publishers, and community builders familiar with the academic, small press, mainstream, and underground Asian American literary scene, over 30 books and chapbooks of Asian American poetry have been identified for publication in 2016. I've posted a public album of the covers of these books on Facebook and Flickr with author information and book information as available.  

I would also note that this year has an impressive showing among the Vietnamese and Filipina poets, and it's a delight to see the Hmong and Khmer communities have works put forward this year as well. A special thanks to Victoria Chang, Alyss Dixon, Mari L'Esperance, Grace Loh Prasad, Sun Yung Shin, and Marianne Villanueva for their assistance in putting this list together with me. I‘m particularly happy to see that this year has been a good year for many poets to debut their very first book or chapbook, because it’s so important for us to get more of our poetic voices out into the world, now more than ever. 

Leviathan by Neil Aitken. Hyacinth Girl Press.

Naming the No Name Woman by Jasmine An. Two Sylvias Press.

Shipwreck Smiles by Lauren Andrei. Rookhaven.

Theory on Falling into a Reef by Michelle Brittan Rosado. Anhinga Press.

Standing Water Dreams by Eleanor Chai. Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

one of us is wave one of us is shore by Genève Chao. Otis College of Art and Design. and Hillary is Dreaming. Make Now Books.

Kissing the Sphinx by Chen Chen. Two of Cups Press.

House A by Jennifer Cheng. Omnidawn.

In the Tongue of Ghosts by Jade Cho. First Word Press.

Hardly War by Don Mee Choi. Wave Books.

Ghosts Still Walking by Do Nguyen Mai. Platypus Press.

The Dead in Daylight by Melody S. Gee. Copper Dillon Books

Islanders by Teow Lim Goh. Conundrum Press.

Driving Without a License by Janine Joseph. Alice James Books.

A History of the Cetacean American Diaspora by Jenna Lê. Anchor Plume.

Solar Maximum by Sueyeun Juliette Lee. Futurepoem Books.

Bone Confetti by Muriel Leung. Noemi Press. 

Book of Interludes by Grace Shuyi Liew. Anomalous Press. Also Prop from Asahta Press.

Map of an Onion by Kenji Liu. Inlandia Institute.

The Bees Make Money in the Lion by Lo Kwa Mai-En. Cleveland State University Press. Also Two Tales by Bloom Books, and The Romances from Lettered Streets Press.

The Taxidermist's Cut by Rajiv Mohabir. Four Way Press.

A Love Song, A Death Rattle, A Battle Cry by Kyle "Guante" Tran Myrhe. Button Poetry.

Violet Energy Ingots by Hoa Nguyen. Wave Poetry.

The Old Philosopher by Vi Khi Nao. Nightboat Books.

Contradictions in the Design by Matthew Olzmann. Alice James Books.

All Things Lose Thousands of Times by Angela Peñaredondo. Inlandia Institute.

Small Wars by Hai Dan Phang. Convulsive Editions.

The Romance of Siam: A Pocket Guide by Jai Arun Ravine. Timeless, Infinite Light.

In the Crocodile Gardens by Saba Razvi. Agape Editions.

Imaginary Vessels by Paisley Rekdal. Copper Canyon Press.

Radio Heart, or How Robots Fall Out of Love by Margaret Rhee. Finishing Line Press.

Brooklyn Antediluvian by Patrick Rosal. Persea Books.

Power Made Us Swoon by Brynn Saito. Red Hen Press.

Tula by Chris Santiago. Tupelo Press.

microchips for millions by Janice Sapigao. PAWA.

Look by Solmaz Sharif. Graywolf Press.

So Much Synth by Brenda Shaughnessy. Copper Canyon Press.

Unbearable Splendor by Sun Yung Shin. Coffee House Press.

Year Zero by Monica Sok. Poetry Society of America.

Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong. Copper Canyon Press.

OVERPOUR by Jane Wong. Action Books.

Poor Anima by Khaty Xiong. Apogee Press. Additionally, Ode to the Far Shore, Platypus Press.

I, Too Dislike It, by Mia You. 1913 Press

Blackacre by Monica Youn. Graywolf Press.

The Halo by C. Dale Young. Four Way Books.

100 Chinese Silences by Timothy Yu. Les Figues Press.

Cajun Sushi Hamsters, Murder, Aliens and Cats. An interview with Mary Turzillo

Mary Turzillo is a writer of many talents with a great sense of humor, imagination and poetry that I admire. I first ran into her work as a member of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, and quickly realized we had many things in common as writers with roots in the Midwest.

Based in Ohio, her work includes the award-winning Lovers & Killers, which won the the very first Elgin Award for Book of the Year from the Science Fiction Poetry Association. She also received a Nebula Award for her novelette Mars is No Place for Children. Her short fiction has been appearing since at least 1994, and she's produced three poetry collections so far beginning with her 2007 debut Your Cat & Other Space Aliens.

Mary has been a professor at Kent State University, and written books on Anne McCaffrey and Philip Jose Farmer. Her husband is the science fiction writer and scientist Geoffrey Landis, who I also feel does wonderful and thoughtful work well worth reading. In Cleveland, she founded the Cajun Sushi Hamsters writing workshop.

I was very curious to see her perspective as a writer and poet, and I appreciate her taking the time out to discuss this ideas with me. Be sure to visit her website and check out her writing.There's much to learn from her style and technique, and I'm looking forward to seeing her next collections.

How did you first develop an interest in poetry? How would you describe your access to poetry growing up?

I was read to from a very early age (two or three) by my grandmother, grandfather, and mother. According to my grandmother, I swatted my grandfather because he didn't use enough emotion in his reading. A lot of books for very young children are in verse, as you realize.

Once I got into first grade, I conceptualized that words on paper were connected to spoken words and stories, and I resolved to write my own Things (I didn't see any difference between poems and stories, and I still don't, really). My mother happens to have saved my first poem, which I wrote down in second grade.

She bought me complete works of Edgar Allan Poe, which of course set the course of my imagination for the ensuing years.


Which poem of yours do you usually recommend to someone who wants to read your work for the first time?

Oh, how to choose? Let me recommend three, since poems are short. "The Emperor's New Spacesuit," "If You Loved Me" (my elegy to borderline personality disorder), and "The Hunter's Mothers." These are in Your Cat & Other Space Aliens, (VanZeno).

The book I'm proudest of is Lovers & Killers, from Dark Regions Press which won the Elgin award in 2013.

I also have a recently published Best of chapbook called A Guide to Endangered Monsters, from Night Ballet Press. It has all my favorites and prizewinners.

Do you prefer coffee or tea?

I like both, but lean a bit more to tea. My preferences change all the time, but right now I like Tulsi Red Chai Masala. And of course, like all cultured people, I love Earl Grey.

If you could have any legendary being for a pet or a companion, what would you choose?

Ganesha, because he is the the remover of obstacles, patron of arts and sciences, god of intellect and learning, Lord of beginnings, and the writer's best friend. And who wouldn't love a deity in the shape of an elephant? But maybe that's a bit blasphemous, because Ganesha is, after all, a god. So my second choice would be Gummitch, from Fritz Leiber's "Space-Time for Springers."

What aspects of life in Ohio did you find most conducive to writing? Did you feel there any distinctive challenges?

Cleveland is a real hub for writing of all kinds. My husband runs a blog called clevelandpoetics (http://www.clevelandpoetics.blogspot.com). The clevelandpoets calendar shows at least one poetry event every night, sometimes several. We have at least ten local indy presses, and I'm not even counting college and university presses. Northeast Ohio is the happening place for poetry. I spent time in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and in Pasadena, and it was hard to find much going on. Workshops, if there were any, were run by university prigs who wanted to charge huge fees, and who in my humble opinion needed a few lessons themselves, in humility if nothing else. As to readings in Pasadena and Boston? Oh, maybe a few here and there. A couple a month. Never open mic. But in contrast, Cleveland, Youngstown, and Akron have some wow stuff going on. Cleveland's slam team is prominent in the nation.

As far as fiction is concerned, in the internet age, geography is not a big issue. You read, you submit electronically, no problems.

Superman was born here. Roger Zelazny (who was a poet in addition to being a fiction writer). Vachel Lindsay. Hart Crane. Rita Dove. Paul Laurence Dunbar. Langston Hughes. James Wright. Ambrose Bierce. Gloria Steinem. Joe Eszterhas. Leigh Brackett. Harlan Ellison. Kenneth Patchen. John Scalzi lives here now. The list goes on.

Sometimes Geoff and I think the cornucopia of poetry opportunities is a lure that keeps us from writing fiction.

When did you feel Your Cat & Other Space Aliens was "finished" and ready to send to publishers for consideration?

Actually, it didn't happen that way. I do a lot of readings, mostly local in northeast Ohio, but also at cons, both in the US and the UK. A local poet and editor, Marcus Bales, had heard me read and had also read my stuff. He was inaugerating a press devoted to spoken word poetry, and he asked me to submit a group of poems. I gave him 96 poems, about half of which were already published, and he chose 69 of these to be in the book. In some ways, Marcus was a collaborator, in that he selected poems that he thought were the best and that worked together thematically. He didn't edit the poems themselves, but he definitely worked with me on concept. We came up with the title together and it really works for me.

I've never actually published a poetry collection that I submitted cold. I do have a couple of books I've lazily shopped around for various contests and publishers. I don't like fee contests; I am concerned that younger, less well-heeled authors are shut out of that process. Not everybody can shell out $50.00 every time they see a new call for a manuscript. I have five single-author collections in print, and all of them have been published because the editor came to me. I admit it, I'm lazy.

Anyway, Marcus published Your Cat & Other Space Aliens under his imprint of VanZeno, and I'm really happy with how it came out. He's a brilliant editor and incidentally a very fine satiric poet.

Marge Simon and I have four collaborative collections, and she placed them, being not only a genius poet but a woman who knows the indy poetry landscape better than anybody else in the known universe. She was a long-time president of the Small Press Writers and Artists Organization. We mull over where to submit (we have been rejected a few times, mostly because our concepts were pure hubris). And we mull over whether each book is finished. In fact, we're mulling that over right now with a book called Satan's Spawn.

I should mention that the brilliant and underappreciated poet Bruce Boston has edited two of my collections and also the collaborations Marge and I did. Bruce came up with the title of Lovers & KIllers, and he also did the cover. I couldn't be happier.

What's been one of the most unusual subjects you've tried to take on with a poem?

Jodi Arias. Marge and I are writing a collection of poems about murderesses. Jodi stands out as one of the strangest subjects for poetry that I can think of.

What's one of your enduring memories from the Cajun Sushi Hamsters?

Steve Swiniarski (A.K.A. S. Andrew Swann) brought the early manuscript of Forests of the Night to our workshop, and we gave him enthusiastic encouragement. We have a custom that a writer has to bring a bottle of champagne to the workshop when he or she sells a story. When Steve sold Forests, and was reminded of this, he confessed shamefacedly, "I'm not old enough to buy champagne."

How easy is it for you to determine if a piece should be prose or poetry? What was the most difficult example to choose from, so far?

Basically, the issue is whether I want to spend an afternoon first-drafting a poem, a couple of weeks making it into a story, or a year making it into a novel. If I can stab the subject quick and deadly, it's a poem. I have a poem I've never published about a certain genetic aberration, and I've written a novelette on the same theme. They go together. I've never sent the poem out, because it would be a spoiler for the novelette. I really should get that novelette in the mail --

Of course fiction needs more of everything. My poetry tends to be narrative, but a story or a novel needs a lot of threads and characters and incidents.

I say I can write a poem in an afternoon, but I've picked at poems, adding a word, removing a word, twisting a line, for years. You know how it is, right? You lie in bed trying to think of the exact right word.

Are there any frontiers in poetry that you feel today's poets could explore more?

Right now SFnal writers are dodging the whole form issue. We need to write form poetry, not just doggeral, but actual good villanelles, sonnets, tanka, sestinas, etc. I personally write a lot of non-form poetry, and I don't think it's in any way inferior to the hard stuff, but I think poets should experiment with form just to see how it feels. I think what a person learns from writing metered poetry or poetry that has some exterior shaping transfers to free verse.

I also think many speculative poets should browse in the vast ocean of poetry that's being published and performed today. There's so much. So much variety.

One good thing is that there seems to be no wall between speculative poetry and the poetry of the greater literary world. A lot of Billy Collins' work could appear in Asimov's. I sometimes meet poets who have no idea that their work is speculative and then a couple months later, at my suggestion, they submit to Star*Line and get an acceptance.

[Poem] Narrative of the Naga's Heirs at Uncanny Magazine

My new poem "Narrative of the Naga's Heirs" in Uncanny Magazine debuted in Uncanny Magazine this January, and it is now available online as free content. Be sure to check it out, and as always, thank you for supporting diverse voices in poetry and speculative literature! Quick Sip Reviews also did a nice review of my poem and the other works in this issue of Uncanny Magazine which really added to the larger discussions we've been having on speculative literature lately. Be sure to check it out.

2015 Poetry Recap

Poetry is an unusual branch of literature. In any given year, your output can vary tremendously. As hard as it is to believe, sometimes a poet can walk away with only one poem in a year, or less than a dozen. Some will struggle to fill even a chapbook under 39 pages, let alone an entire full-length book. Then, some poets manage to get out multiple books in a year, but only a few of those are lucky to have at least one of them be an enduring volume in their oeuvre, let alone one that alters the cosmos by some magnificent increment.

Do we measure a poet's year by their volume, or their endurance? Do we assign a weight to years a book is produced, or one in which there is an abundance of publications or performances? These are all questions particular to a poet. They're not questions that tip the Earth off of her axis. In a poet's line of work, such assessments, such considerations are also misleading, because it can take decades and lifetimes before a poem might reach the one it is truly meant for. This is an intimidating, stultifying truth.

I write these remarks mostly for myself today, that I might return to them twenty years or more later for consideration. I'm not anticipating any new formal publications between now and the end of the year, so here is the body of poems I composed and shared with the public at large.

"Formally," new work of mine was published in only two publications this year: Uncanny Magazine and the Asian American Literary Review.  When counting poems I shared directly with my readers here, on Facebook, or elsewhere, it appears to be at least 47 new poems. I'm not including reprints of older work in this assessment.

At the beginning of the year, I had also released a collected edition of my work to date to the Creative Commons, "The Tuk-Tuk Diaries: Preludes and Postcards," but there were only marginal revisions to these older works that scarcely merits mention.

In recent years, my poems were getting longer than I usually prefer. This year seems to be one where I returned to shorter pieces, particularly haiku sequences.

Some have worked better than others, many tied to the Laomagination project: Expanding the visual and literary vocabulary of the Lao American experience to include the imaginative and to converse with the mythic. Some results were more successful than others, of course.

Other poems were composed in consideration of the 20th anniversary of the SatJaDham Lao Literary Project, which was personally influential on me, as well as the 5th anniversary of the U.N. Convention on Cluster Munitions, and the 40th anniversary of the Lao Diaspora. This year, numerous older poems were reimagined through graphopoetics or haiga.  My most productive months appear to have been between January to July, although several significant pieces to me have been composed since then, My question for the early part of 2016 will be determining whether to collect the loose poems into a single collection, or to prepare a more thematically cohesive manuscript for a later date.

Key Poems, 2015:

"The AI Haikus, Part I"

"A Preface to Lao Silences"

"Contracting"

"The Duel (Prelude)"

"Family Secrets"

"Fear of a Lao Planet"

"Five Dachshund Haikus"

"Fon Nyakinee"

"Four Niece Sitting Haikus"

"Gaze"

"The G-Word (Haiku)"

"Haikilling"

"The Hanumandroid"

"In the Event of a Laobot Rampage"

"The Jetaka Haikus"

"The Kinnaly and the Apple"

"Laobotikoans"

"The Laodyssey, Preamble"

"Laomigration Haiku"

"Laopocalypse Haikus: 1/26/2557"

"Laopocalypse Haiku: Oppenheimer, July 16, 2487"

"Laopocalypse Haikus 3/16/2557"

"Legacies"

"Legacies of Warhol"

"Meditation in New Lan Xang"

"Nakanya 2557"

"Nakanya Minuet"

"Narcissus of Vientiane, 5225"

"The Neighborly Scavengers"

"Ode to Laoducken"

"On A Subway to the Bay"

"Pangolin Haikus"

"Phi Kasu Valentine"

"The Phi Kongkoi Blues"

"Possessions"

"Prognostication"

"Rare Lumber"

"The Sabaipocalypse"

"Secrets of Lao Super Science"

"Shark Week Haiku 2015"

"Spaces"

"Sympathy for the Xenomorph"

"Terrible Lizards, Human Humans"

"Vientiane in 13 Haikus"

"Whoops, Laopocalypse"

Uncanny Magazine:
"Slices of Failure in Super Science"

Asian American Literary Review:
"Laotian Cartographies, Part I (Phantoms)"
"A Semblance of Our Conversation, April 11th, 2010, Ceres, CA"
"My Secret War Within"

Winter, Writing, and Shannon Connor Winward

This week I'm sharing an interview with Shannon Connor Winward, whose work I first encountered as part of the Science Fiction Poetry Association. Based on the East Coast, Shannon's engaging work includes both prose and poetry.Her poetry has been nominated for a Rhysling award, with publication in Pedestal Magazine, Strange Horizons, Fairy Tale Magazine, Literary Mama, Hip Mama, Star*Line, Illumen, and many others. She's also the poetry editor for Devilfish Review, a quarterly online magazine specializing in speculative literature. Be sure to check them out!

Shannon's debut collection of poetry, Undoing Winter, (Finishing Line Press) was nominated for a 2015 Elgin award for best speculative poetry chapbook by the Science Fiction Poetry Association. It's not easy to describe Undoing Winter because it covers so much ground, but you'll find her contemplating love, motherhood, history and the fantastic, death and ressurection. It's a brief book, but it earns its praise.

Her stories have been published or are forthcoming in Psuedopod: Artemis Rising, Gargoyle, Spinetingler Magazine, Scigentasy, Flash Fiction Online, Plasma Frequency Magazine, PANK, and The Vestal Review, and numerous international anthologies.   She's received many distinctions for her writing already, including Semi-Finalist in the Writers of the Future Contest, and runner-up for an emerging artist fellowship in literature by the Delaware Division of the Arts in 2014 and 2015.

You can visit her website at: http://www.shannonconnorwinward.com/

Do you mind telling us when you first developed an interest in poetry? How would you describe your access to poetry growing up?

I was always writing poems. I was into anything creative that drew attention to me, me me. But I got serious about it in fourth or fifth grade, when they would take our English class down to the computer lab to mess around with clipart and typing; we were supposed to make greeting cards for our parents for the holidays and whatnot. I always turned mine into poetry, like, Shakespearean sonnets and epic tragic-comedies about doomed turkeys at Thanksgiving. I loved that I could create something lasting like that, to entertain people or surprise them. And of course, as I grew older and life got harder, I realized that writing was a way to express what I was going through. It just came naturally.

I can't say that I had prolific access to poetry as a kid; I read what I came across (how I loved Shel Silverstein) and what was part of the curriculum. I was fortunate to have some very supportive teachers who encouraged me to write; sometimes they introduced me to poets like Langston Hughes or Sylvia Plath. I wish now that I had a more extensive education in poetry, but I ended up studying the humanities, not the arts. I'm trying to make up for that now, but it's different when you are a grownup, with kids and a mortgage. If I could go back, I'd tell my younger self to slow down and soak up a lot more, but life doesn't flow backwards.

Which poem of yours do you usually recommend to someone who wants to read your work for the first time?

My poem, "Session" (The Pedestal Magazine, December 2010) is one of my favorites. It's about the anthropology of the individual psyche. It's very representative of how I write and what interests me. "Beansidhe" (Ideomancer, June 2011) is another one. It deals with myths and ghosts, lost love and subtle feminism, and features an unreliable narrator. You have to read between the lines in my writing, which sometimes means people don't get me, but that's okay. I get me. :)

Do you prefer coffee or tea?

Oh, godz, coffee. Coffee coffee coffee.
Mint tea is pretty good, though.

If you could have any imaginary being for a pet or companion, what would it be?

I would like a talking owl. A sarcastic, sage, self-sufficient and hypo-allergenic owl (because I'm allergic to feathers) who calls me on my bullshit, babysits my kids, and bites me when I'm not writing enough.

"Undoing Winter" has some really lovely lines, and blends some very modern and timeless issues with the fantastic. What were some of your thoughts on organizing the manuscript?

I realized pretty early on that the poems needed to follow a "down into darkness, back into light" pattern; that is the motif of the titular poem ("Undoing Winter" is about Demeter haranguing Persephone to get over Herself and come away from Hades), but it's also symbolic of my life as someone with a mood disorder. I go down and I come back, maybe scarred but usually stronger and wiser. I wanted the reader to take that journey, too. I arranged the poems within that framework like you might make a mix tape; one poem had to flow into the next in a way that sounded right, even if I couldn't articulate why.

Were there any parts that you really wanted to include in "Undoing Winter", but cut out for one reason or another?

Yeah, it started out as a longer manuscript, but I kept trimming it down. Some of it felt repetitive, or messed with the arc. The final product is petite (which is unusual for me) but I think what was left was much stronger.

How do you determine how much of the imaginative you include in your poems, and how much realism?

I wrote a lot of speculative work when I was younger, stoned and spiritual. Over the last few years my poems tend to be more about family relationships, especially dealing with aging parents and raising a special needs kid. That's the stuff that comes pouring out when I come crying to my laptop, not the magical or mythic. I do still love the speculative genre; I try to make a point of doing it when I've got time to free write. I like to write to prompts or challenges. I also get some imaginative stuff when I start with random words or structures, let my right-brain take the lead. I think once my kids are older I'll come back to genre writing but, right now, life is about the alarm clock, the school bus, the IEP meetings, the bad back. Realism is where my head is.

Are you contemplating another collection of poetry in the near future?

I am. All the family-centric stuff will probably find its way into a memoir of sorts. I have a lot of rage in me over the lack of support that is out there for families of kids with mental health issues; I always thought I'd like to use my words, and what we've been through, to advocate for those whose voices aren't being heard. But I've got to be doing more than treading water myself, so I don't know if that will be a "near future" project or just a someday one. But it's coming.

If you could write from any legendary or imaginary place, where would you like to write?

The Celtic version of heaven is the Summerland. I imagine it as a balmy place full of waterfalls and bonfires, tables always overflowing with your favorite foods, and all your departed loved ones strutting around in glittering clothes, drinking and laughing. I'd love to go there with a pad and a pen – and then come back to share the stories. I'd like to be able to tell people it only gets better from here.

And finally, what advice would you give to someone who wants to begin writing, whether as a poet or as a prose writer?

Write! If writing makes you feel good, do it. If it's all you want to do, write as much as you can, challenge yourself, read. seek out constructive criticism, keep trying to improve your craft -- but don't pressure yourself to be perfect, or take rejection personally. It's important to keep an element of joy in the process, else writing becomes just work, and that's no fun. Love yourself through your words; the rest will follow.

Four Poems

From my 2009 collection, BARROW

[Poem] Hmong Market at Luang Prabang

If I am successful,
I will be immortal and misunderstood.

If these emaciated girls on the candlelit street
Of Luang Prabang are successful,

They understand they will live for another melting day
Dreaming idly of an ink-faced man like me
Who will whisk them away for good,

Only he’s perfect, always remembering his pinky promise
To come back the next night

To buy their dusty bed sheets
For a fistful of wrinkled kip.

[Poem] What kills a man

Always small things:

A round.

Holes.

Fumes.
Edges.
Split atoms.
A second.
A footstep.
A sip.  A bite.  A word.  A cell.

A motion. An emotion. A dream.
A fool.

A bit of salt. A drop. A fragment.
The true root of arguments.

What kills a man is mysterious
Only in how minute the culprit
Behind the blow.

We’re careless, and forget:
Even when what kills a man
Is another man,

It is a small thing that kills a man,
The whole earth a single grain

            On a sprawling table filled with the smallest things.

from On the Other Side of the Eye, 2007

[Poem] Tempus Fugit (Spanish translation)

Caroline Arroyo of Madrid did a fine translation of my poem Tempus Fugit, which originally appeared in my collection BARROW in 2008:

Tempus Fugit

El tiempo vuela, pero va en círculos también,
Un hula hoop celestial
Como los juguetes más pequeños de un Dios bailarín
Clavado en órbitas confusas.

               Todo cambia, todo es la misma opción

Corriendo a toda velocidad como un caballero español
En la ruta de los molinos, al otro lado de la línea inicial
¡Moliendo el dorado grano bajo sus enormes pies!

¿Quien lanzó este disco al aire en un principio?
El sol una pistola de fogueo, la luna un cronómetro
Nuestros ojos testigos imperfectos

               Consistentemente parpadeando antes de que la meta haya sido cruzada.

Tempus Fugit

Time flies, but it is going in circles too,
A celestial hula hoop
For a shimmying deity’s tiniest toys
Pinned to obscure orbits.

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose,

Racing at full tilt like an old Spanish cavalier
On a windmill course to the other end of the start line
Grinding golden grain beneath her giant feet!

Who threw this disc into the air in the first place?
The sun a starter pistol, the moon a stopwatch,
Our eyes an imperfect witness

       Consistently blinking before the finish line is crossed.

[Poem] Haikilling

Some people will have
Less than even a haiku
To mark their passing

Who will remember
This man, this woman, their lives
With at least one word?

Forgotten by all?
Nothing worth a lasting note?
This fate, quite common.

Elders and parents.
Refugees from old countries.
Veterans and priests.

Students stare at me.
“This does not apply to me.”
They take some selfies.

Victims on the news?
Abstractions, like their mentors.
What is there to say?

How futile it seems,
To battle for tomorrow,
Odd posterity.

Haiku or whisper,
This poem is a ghost. Haunts.
You will recall this.

But not who it was
Written for in the first place.
Even if it’s you.

[Poem] Charms

[Poem] A Thousand Smiles

[Poem] The Jetaka Haikus

[Poem] E Pluribus Unum

[Poem] The Sabaipocalypse

[Poem] Night

Originally written in 2006, "Night" appeared in Tanon Sai Jai in 2009.

[Poem] Nakology

[Poem] Snakehead

[Poem] Isopod

[Poem] "Slices of Super Science" debuts in Uncanny Magazine

I'm delighted to report that my poem "Slices of Failiure in Super Science" debuted today at Uncanny Magazine, along with the work of great writers such as Shveta Thakrar, C.S.E. Cooney, Sofia Samatar, and E. Lily Yu.

Be sure to check the entire issue out!

The featured fiction of this issue includes "Woman at Exhibition" by E. Lily Yu, and Mary Robinette Kowal's "Midnight Hour." I'm quickly becoming a big fan of Shveta Thakrar's work, and "The Rainbow Flame" is a great example of her style.

The other poems in this issue are "The Saga of Captain Jens" by C. S. E. Cooney and "Σειρήνοιϊν" by Sonya Taaffe. "The Saga of Captain Jens" is a fun, rousing tale of a fantastic pirate queen dedicated to Chicago-based writer, educator and editor Tina Jens.

Sofia Samatar presents a nice quick snapshot on the subject of "writing queerly" in SFF literature looking at three approaches and what we might consider about these techniques. She cites the work of An Owomoyela, Samuel Delaney and Ellen Kushner in this issue, and her points are well worth considering.

It's been great to see Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damien Thomas keep this wonderful magazine going. Their selections have been thought-provoking and intriguing, and I look forward to seeing more from them in the future. I'm glad they're creating a space where diverse voices can really find an audience and we can see some impressive ideas emerge to inspire and excite everyone.

As a poem, "Slices of Failure in Super Science" came up in the aftermath of discussions regarding the classic horror films of the mid-20th century that were so often on the airwaves when I was growing up as a child in Michigan. There were often discussions of films such as "They Saved Hitler's Brain," "The Man With Two Heads," "Blackenstein" and "The Brain That Wouldn't Die" which gave us the classic imagery of "Jan in the Pan." In the 1980s, I often found myself watching films like "Re-Animator" and "From Beyond," "The Lawnmower Man" or "Flatliners" which had themes of the search for immortality and the defeat of death at their heart.

In this poem, I wanted to take a look at the different forms of failure that take place along this quest. I sought to probe our interest in preserving our consciousness, and how the West really tries anything it can to avert a final reckoning.

A frequent point I'd been making throughout CONvergence this year and other conversations is that of course, these ideas are largely centered in a very Western conception of the cosmos, and I don't think we've really seen a full exploration of these ideas in Lao and Southeast Asian literature.

This should actually provide many of our writers a lot to work with. What might happen in such stories. When our world-view is largely informed by a sense of reincarnation and multiple lifetimes, for example, how does this adjust the way we try to upload your consciousness. Might uploading or preserving our consciousness have a karmic weight or repercussion? In the Therevada approach, would it be a violation of the five precepts or another element of the Buddhist perspective to seek or to assist efforts in immortality?

If you're successful, does your consciousness continue to accumulate karmic merit and stains? Or do you get a reset? And if you do, then, are you really the same person? If not, then what's the point? Or is it possible, that you also have a new set of karmic laws and constraints applied to you? A Buddhist iteration of the Laws of Robotics. What does the precept against immoral sex mean to a cyber-consciousness? Could that be broadly interpreted as unethical distribution and reproduction of your organizing algorithms or something, or merely abuse of teledildonics?

But of course, "Slices of Failure in Super Science" is a poem, and in this case I didn't want to probe the question exhaustively, but to open the matter up to some further inquiry. Share and Enjoy! ;)