Shadows and Verse: An interview with poet Christina Sng

I recently had the opportunity to interview Christina Sng, who is a prolific poet with a growing body of work including science fiction and horror. Currently based in Singapore, her work has been nominated for the Rhysling Award and received Honorable Mentions in the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror.

Born in the Year of the Rat, she is the author of several chapbooks, including The Darkside of Eden (2002) and Dark Dreams (2013). Her latest book of poetry, A Collection of Nightmares has been acquired by Raw Dog Screaming Press and is slated for late 2016. You can find her at www.christinasng.com.


Can you tell us a little about yourself, and how did you develop an interest in writing?

I’ve been writing for as long as I can remember. As a child, I was always scribbling poems about my stuffed animals and imaginary people going to the market. When I was 6, I began a newsletter about my cats and I believe my sister has the last surviving copy somewhere.

You studied Criminology at the University of Melbourne. Has that ever influenced your approach to poetry?

Actually, no. But it has helped me understand how and why people commit crimes. In my first year in university, I realized I was only interested in Abnormal Psych, so I skipped Psychology and went straight to Criminology. They had excellent lecturers, a brand new computer lab, the best snack machine on campus, and it was 2 minutes walk from my flat.

Who do you turn to for your literary inspirations?

Sylvia Plath is my favorite poet. I love the way her poems form and how perfectly constructed they are. Anne Sexton intrigues me. Her topics and language are unabashedly honest and always touching. I relate. I'm at that age.

Recently, I've been enamored by haiku and been writing scifaiku and horrorku. It's great for me because I love how pithy and concise the poems are, which suits my very short attention span now after ten years of sleep deprivation. There is so much wonderful and inspiring work out there. I especially love Deborah Kolodji's and Susan Burch's work.

You've been very prolific with your writing this year. What are some of the pieces you're excited about coming up?

Thank you! I made my first pro fiction sale this year and my flash fiction "The Closed Window" appeared in the July issue of Fantastic Stories of the Imagination. I don't write much fiction at all and was over the moon when I sold it and to such an amazing venue like Fantastic Stories! Last month, I sold my first short story “Red” to Space and Time. The acceptance letter is my phone’s screensaver for the moments I am certain I imagined it.

My work recently appeared in Apex Magazine, Illumen, New Myths, Spectral Realms, and Scifaikuest for the first time. The experience is always exhilarating, like a kitten experiencing her first snow or watching our spacecraft fly by a planet we have never ever seen up close. Yet at the same time, seeing my poems in a magazine I’ve been published in before gives me unparalleled joy and warm comfort, like curling up to a good book on the couch with a cup of tea and a bag of Cheese Tasters.

As a writer, when are you most satisfied with a poem?

When it is complete.

What's the best compliment you've received for your poetry so far?

To be honest, every compliment has been absolutely lovely to receive. I'm always appreciative and grateful when someone takes the time to do so. Of course, pleasing my harshest critics has been an uphill task. The few poems that they have been asked to read and critique were greeted with, “Not bad, Mom! Can I go back and read my book now?”

What's one of the most unusual subjects you've taken on with your poetry?

Talking bathroom stickers in my poem “Adaptation”, which appeared in Beyond Centauri back in January 2004.

What's next for you?

My first full-length dark poetry collection will be released late next year and I’m putting together a collection of space poems. Also in the works is a novel that has been in planning and draft for some time now. It's finally getting its footing and will hopefully be finished by the time I'm 80.

Thank you for the interview, Bryan. It was a real pleasure.

[Folktale] Nang Phom Hom

Preface: Nang Phom Hom, “The Perfume-haired Girl” is a classic folktale in Lao tradition, and relatively easy to tell once you understand the basics of the story. The biggest challenge is that the ending is a bit gruesome. 

Under modern Lao values, one could argue the punishment of the villain seems way out of proportion (The prince seems to escape direct karmic consequence by ordering his servants to do the dirty deed, but that’s a debate for another time.) I imagine most Lao would interpret the villain’s fate as a warning not to mess around with magic because undoing the mess magic causes often carries a very high price.

This is far from a final version, but I wanted to retell Nang Phom Hom in a way that had greater internal consistency and gave Nang Phom Hom greater agency and personality than what’s found in the current translations available so far. Hopefully, it also will provide future generations enough of a chance to add to the “Untold Adventures of Nang Phom Hom” later.

Nang Phom Hom

Once, before Laos was even a dream, there was an old widow who was searching for food in the jungle. She became thirsty, and spotted a giant elephant’s footprint filled with water. She drank from the footprint and returned to her village. To her surprise, she became pregnant, and soon gave birth to a girl with beautiful smelling hair. She named the girl Nang Phom Hom.

It was not an easy childhood for the young girl. The other village children constantly teased Nang Phom Hom, calling her the “Daughter of an Elephant,” and ruder names, but she never understood why, and her mother never told her. When Nang Phom Hom was nine years old, her mother at last told her with her the whole strange story with her very last breath. Her mother’s story deeply confused Nang Phom Hom. Few attended her mother’s funeral, and when it was finished, Nang Pham Hom set out to find her father and her true destiny.

Her journey took her across many lands over many years, including the Realm of Bandits, the Realm of Spiders, the Realm of Laughing Monkeys, the Realm of Ugly Giants, the Realm of Blackbirds, the Realm of Ancient Serpents, the Realm of Riddling Tigers, and the Realm of Giant Catfish. Finally, when she was twelve, she arrived at the edge of the Realm of Elephants, and told her story to the guardians at the border.

The guardians laughed at her story, for how could she be the daughter of the King of Elephants? But they agreed to take her to their master to let him decide her fate, noting it was forbidden for humans to enter the Realm of Elephants.

The King of Elephants was doubtful of her story but offered her a challenge. “If you are truly my daughter, you will be able to walk on my tusks without falling off. But if you are not, I will crush you flat with my foot for lying to me, and no one will ever remember you.”

Nang Phom Hom agreed to the challenge, and boldly climbed onto the King of Elephants tusk, certain of her roots. Step by step, one foot after the other, to the astonishment of everyone assembled, she walked the entire length of his left tusk, and then his right tusk, and never once fell off. The King of Elephants smiled joyously and acknowledged her as his true daughter. He ordered a palace built for her and decreed that no one was to enter but her. At last, Nang Phom Hom was home and happy.

She spent many years with her father, who spent his time with her teaching her the ways of the elephants and showing her the secrets and mysteries of his kingdom. But one day, the King of Elephants told her that he and his court needed to travel to his brother in a distant land, and she needed to stay in the palace, where she would be safe. The King’s journey would take several years. Although saddened by her father’s departure, she agreed to stay, and wished them well.

Over the years while everyone was away, she grew into an elegant woman. One night, she had a strange dream that she met a man who would fall in love with her, and they would marry. When she woke up, she cut off a lock of her hair, and put it into a box that she set adrift in the river. She made a wish that whoever found the box would come to find her and marry her.

Many months later, a prince found the box and was so enchanted by the fragrance of the hair inside that he mounted a search far and wide for the owner. After many adventures, he finally found Nang Phom Hom. Just as Nang Phom Hom had wished, they fell in love and he asked her to marry him. They soon had two children and were happy.

They lived this way for several years when news arrived that the King of Elephants was at last returning. Knowing that her father had forbidden anyone, especially humans, to come into his realm and especially her palace, she hid her family.

When the King of Elephants arrived, she welcomed her father warmly. Sensing something was strange, he asked her if anyone had come to visit her. She told her father no, and he believed her. This continued for almost a month, but finally it became too frightening for her, so she and the prince built a raft together to voyage to her husband’s homeland.

The King of the Elephants came out of the jungle to see Nang Phom Hom and her family floating down the river. They were almost completely out of sight when he fell to the ground and called out to her. “My daughter, my daughter Nang Phom Hom, come back! Don’t be afraid. I forgive everything. But come back, I just want to see you one last time before I die.”

With tears, Nang Phom Hom leapt off the boat and swam back to her beloved father. As he lay dying, he smiled at his daughter and said, “I have always loved you, my daughter. When I have breathed my last, take my tusks and throw them into the river. Do as I ask, please.” The King of Elephants closed his eyes one final time and left the world. Weeping, Nang Phom Hom did as she was asked. First one tusk, then the next, each perfect and magnificent. When she was done, something magical happened and the tusks transformed into a splendid boat of gold.

Nang Phom Hom called her husband and children back, and together they boarded the golden boat to return to her husband’s people. It would be a journey of many months, and they saw many strange things along the way.

Alas, one night they stopped ashore near the hut of a horrid witch who decided she wanted the prince all for her own. Just before everyone was about to depart, the witch disguised herself as a perfect white lotus near the boat. Nang Phom Hom was delighted by the flower and reached down to pick it up to show her family.

Instead, she was transformed into a monkey, while the witch took the form of Nang Phom Hom. She tried to tell her husband, frantically waving her arms, but the witch chased the monkey into the forest, then climbed aboard the golden boat with a smile. The prince was none the wiser, although his children suspected something was wrong. As a monkey, Nang Phom Hom could do nothing but try to follow the river and her family.

Nang Phom Hom’s family finally arrived at the palace of the prince, who welcomed them with open arms. But the children knew more than ever that this was not their true mother. One night, they snuck out into the nearby forest and found their mother, who wept at the sight of them. But Nang Phom Hom knew they had to be careful, or the witch might kill everyone before the truth could be told.

One afternoon, while the witch was sleeping, dreaming of what she would do with all of the wealth of the prince’s kingdom, the children asked their father to come with them. They led him to the forest, and to the monkey who was Nang Phom Hom. When the prince caught scent of the monkey’s fragrant hair, he realized at last this was his true love. But he did not know what to do to help his wife, or how to deal with the witch in his palace.

A wandering forest hermit came by, and saw the prince and his dilemma. The hermit pondered the problem. After deep consideration, he told the prince that the only way to turn Nang Phom Hom back into a human would be for her to bathe in the blood of the witch who cast the spell. The prince agreed.

When he returned to the palace, he instructed his servants to go walking with the witch in the woods, and when they traveled far enough that no one could see them, they were to kill her and collect the blood. The servants did as they were told, and the prince brought the blood to Nang Phom Hom, who was transformed back into a human.

Although there were many adventures afterwards, for the most part, Nang Phom Hom and her family lived happily afterwards.

San Diego Lao Boat Racing Festival coming Oct. 31

On Saturday, October 31st in San Diego, I'll be joining Sahtu Press at the Lao Boat Racing Festival at Tecolote Shores North, Mission Bay Park from 9AM to 4PM.

This is the second year the community in San Diego has organized the event. In addition to Dragonboat racing, they'll have Lao food and craft vendors, cultural performances including traditional Lao dance and music, and a parade. There are approximately 7,000 Lao estimated to reside in San Diego. For more information you can visit the organizers' facebook page at: MekongBoatRacing Club.

The other Sahtu Press authors will be there, too, including Nor Sanavongsay, author of "A Sticky Mess" and Krysada Panusith Phounsiri, the author of "Dance Among Elephants". Nor Sanavongsay have had a busy month with recent appearances at ZAPPCON in Fresno and ConVolution in San Francisco. Krysada Panusith Phounsiri also had a successful gallery show for his Snap Pilots photography team in San Diego in addition to his extensive traveling across the country. His book just finished selling out its most recent printing, but a fresh printing is arriving just in time for the Lao Boat Racing Festival.

We'll have copies of Soul Vang's first book of poetry To Live Here, Sunny Chanthanouvong & David Zander's folktale collection The Wolf and the Moon, and Kev Minh Allen's debut poetry collection My Proud Sacrifice.

I'll have copies of Tanon Sai Jai and Demonstra on sale for $20 each at the festival, although we'll also have discounted bundles available throughout the day.

In the Sahtu Press reissue of my 2009 poetry collection, I address the complicated twists and turns of the Lao diaspora in one of my more intimate and personal collections to date. Composed of 56 poems and a photo essay, I contemplate what it means to be Lao and Lao American.

Is there a difference? How do we reconcile with memory, and how do we share a future? Tanon Sai Jai probes many of the familiar symbols and everyday objects of Lao life and pays tribute to many of the artists, writers and community builders I met along the way. Sometimes deep, soften humorous and humane, Tanon Sai Jai gives readers many things to think about on the Path of the Heart.

DEMONSTRA is my 2013 award-winning book. It received the Science Fiction Poetry Association Elgin Award for Book of the Year. As my publisher, Innsmouth Press described it: "In the depths, half-hidden under still waters, await strange and vicious creatures …. Cthulhu, Godzilla and nagas mingle in DEMONSTRA, a speculative poem collection which assembles 20 years of work. DEMONSTRA is a book of things glimpsed out of the corner of the eye. It is about a reality that can never fully be demonstrated, authenticated, dissected, for certain visions always remain in shadows."

As an interesting bit of history, dragonboat racing originated in China, but many other nations observe it to recognize aspects of our shared heritage.

One version of the tale maintains that there was a wise and loyal minister and poet named Qu Yuan who served the Zhou Emperor. His book, the Chu Ci is widely regarded as one of the two greatest books of ancient Chinese verse. He was much beloved by the common people for his constant fight against corruption in the emperor's court. However, Qu Yuan finally became so despondent at the corruption of his colleagues he threw himself into the Milou River.

The community rushed out in long boats hoping to rescue him, but they were too late. They beat drums to scare the fish away, and threw dumplings into the water to feed the fish so they would not eat Qu Yuan's body. It is said that late one night, Qu Yuan's ghost appeared before his friends and told them his fate, asking them to wrap their rice into three-cornered silk packages to ward off a dragon in the river.

Dragonboat races have since been held to commemorate Qu Yuan’s death, typically celebrated on the fifth day of the fifth month of the lunar calendar. Many communities now convene dragonboat races year-round.

My poem "Zongzi" was written in part because of this legend, although it never really found a home in other journals. So it goes.

Zongzi

How can a person be free
If they do not grow?
Will all of the poets die
If Tomorrow finally arrives?

How hard did the home winds blow
On the bleak isle of sharp-beaked Harpies?
Will Qu Yuan ever bob to the surface
And touch my humble dragon's bow?

Can burnt flags really feed trees
better than spilled blood?
If I don't pretend I'm here
Atop my staircase now,
Where do I go tomorrow?

After a good meal on University Avenue,
You might dream of unwrapping
A forlorn writer's last words
Secretly scratched onto a bamboo leaf,
Thrown to the wind for passing schoolchildren
From an attic of dried flowers and dust
And ask, "When do electric elephants dream,
If all of their time is spent remembering?"

[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

A New Future for Poetry in Post-Censorship Burma

Poetry Foundation has a great article by Harriet Staff on "A New Future for Poetry in Post-Censorship Burma" taking particular note of James Bynre's piece for The Dissident. Byrne noted "I came to realise that the poets were essentially working undercover. They were survivors (those that had survived) and the poetry was extraordinarily rich in imagery, playfulness and dense in metaphor."

This was an environment where for the better part of the 20th and 21st century words became liabilities. We find out in the article that words like "red," "sunset," even "mother" became forbidden. A book that will be of extreme interest to those of us working on similar issues is Bones Will Crow: 15 Contemporary Burmese Poets, which is the first anthology of Burmese poetry to be printed in Europe and the Americas.

As I begin to transition into doing my work with Sahtu Press, I'm particularly struck by Byrne's remarks: "If you probe deeper and talk to many of the writers inside the country suspicion of the government and Western cultural organisations remains. In fact, several poets in Mandalay boycotted the Irrawaddy Festival this year because of apparent shoddy treatment by the (mostly British) organisers. Last year during the festival I became aware that many key Burmese writers were disappointed by their low-level of involvement in the festival. Clearly there is a need for the Burmese to decide how best to celebrate their own literature. This could take the form of an independently-run festival organised by the Burmese themselves."

It suggests to me that my work on the National Lao American Writers Summit is and remains an important effort. We'll find out later this week if we have been greenlit to convene the next National Lao American Writers Summit for August, or if it must wait until 2015, five years later.

It is my hope that Burmese, particularly Karen in Minnesota are able to build the critical mass they need, too, to rebuild their literary traditions. This will be one of the pressing questions of the Minnesota Legacy funds- if they will be willing to aid the newest Minnesotans, however brief their time among us has been.

I empathize deeply with their situation, and there are many other Lao who can appreciate this journey very concretely. Time will tell if we can rise up to the occasion or if we will all become cultures whom history rolls over, another story between the cracks filled with "what might have beens."

On The Other Side Of The Eye included at New Pages

"On The Other Side Of The Eye" was included as a writer's resource by New Pages this week. It's nice to be appreciated. It can be found among many other fine blogs by writers from around the world, offering various bits of advice and opportunities for emerging and established writers.

I consider them an essential resource at the moment, with one of the better up-to-date calls for submissions you're going to find anywhere online without going through someone like Duotrope. Be sure to regularly check their calls for submissions for great literary journals and projects to submit your work.  

I guess that means extra dachshund pictures need to go up here now.

Ask a Poet: 2/2-8/14

So, this week I had a few interesting questions from writers and poets from as far away as Kenya to around the corner. I thought it might be interesting to share a few of them with you, and a brief version of my responses, to spare all of you the more long-winded version the original questioner endured.

One thought that I've particularly been mulling over was the realization: I'm not as concerned about a poet's verse following the rules as I am about their verse following their souls.

But on to the questions:

I've been sending my work out, but I'm getting so many rejection letters, it's depressing. Do you ever get those? How do you handle it?

I've gotten them. I still get them. In fact, I got a very snippy rejection this week, from a journal who shall remain nameless. But you develop a thick skin about this sort of thing. You often should bear in mind that the poem may not be the problem, it's whether it fits with the journal in question.

Over the long-term I always expected that a poet's career naturally includes getting enough rejections to wallpaper a room. Or what kind of poet are you?  The Michael Jordan quote applies here: "I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed."

 I'd feel suspicious if I always got accepted, because that would tell me I'm not taking any risks. Of course, I'd also feel suspicious if I ALWAYS got rejected because there may be something I need to look at about that poem or my process, because even for the worst poets, CONSTANT rejection is pretty rare. I don't want to suggest there's a journal for EVERY poem, but there are homes for a great many of them. One's job as a poet is to find a good home for as many good poems as you can.

Do they appreciate poetry in your country? In mine, it's seen at best as a hobby, certainly not a profession.

Well, in the old days in Laos, poets were considered "The Eyes of the City." Lately, in communities around the world, it can certainly feel like we're keeping a lot of them shut.

But for me, I don't see poetry as either a hobby or a profession, but a state of being.

The self is such an onion. Peel away all of these layers we have. At my core, if you take away my language, age, name, nationality, so many different markers of being, and I'm fairly certain, poet would be one of the last things that's left.

You've been published around the world. When did you first feel you were ready to be published abroad?

I often tell emerging writers, don't be afraid to seek an international readership. For me, it actually came up because I was having so many difficulties being printed in the US, even by journals that were supposedly seeking poems and writing from Asian Americans or from local residents. I got fed up, and decided to send some poems to several journals abroad and got accepted there.

London Ghetto Poets, Quarterly Literary Review Singapore, and Poetry Niederngasse in Switzerland were among the first foreign journals to print my work, and I think that's an even more validating experience than publication in many US journals, because your work has touched someone whose cultural frame is potentially so much more different than yours.

So I say: Submit to journals abroad. You learn a lot that can improve your writing back home. There's some people who think you have to build up your writing domestically first, and that has worked for some writers. But I don't believe in that approach, myself.

And finally, a Lovecraftian question:
Why are so many people attracted to H.P. Lovecraft's stories where humans are a tiny, insignificant mistake?

I find that these stories resonate most with Americans as a really mind-blowing proposition. It's a very big contrast to their literary traditions that position them as the center of the Universe. Others suggest that Lovecraft was a nihilist. But for me, I've found the work interesting because it dovetails with a more realistic assessment of humanity's place within the great chain of being. This is a mindset that you can also often find within certain philosophies and artistic movements in Asia. Although some believe we're apex entities compared to some forms of grass, bacteria, and now, apparently, immortal jellyfish, well, when the stars are right, you tend to see things in perspective.

Superstitions of the Lao tradition

Lao tradition is filled with a variety of superstitions, and with over 160 different ethnic groups there are likely thousands of prohibitions one could run afoul of. A number of these influenced the direction DEMONSTRA took, but it would be almost impossible to include them all. Still, as we did with the beginning guide to phi and other entities, we can try to collect more of them together in one place so that we have more of an understanding of our rich traditions.

A special hat tip to Ketmani Kouanchao, Kelly Bornt Phoninsan, Mattie Do, Chanida Phaengdara Potter, Saengmany Ratsabout, Nor Sanavongsay, Theek Smith, and Saymoukda Vongsay for additional research and a few laughs along the way gathering this all together. So here we go:

One common one is the belief that if you step over someone older than you, bad luck will arrive. Or that women should never ride on top of a bus above male passengers. Lao architects insist stairs must always be odd numbered.

You'll find elders who tell you not to point at the rainbow or you will lose a finger. This becomes interesting because the Nak are connected to rainbows, per myth, so I wonder if there's a connection there. There seems to be a growing belief that if you eat snake by the Mekong, you inviting death, particularly by "drowning." Most likely you offended a Nak, who would also be inclined to do you in if you're partying and frolicking in their clean and tranquil waters.

But let's get to the good stuff. There are numerous superstitions connected to phi and other denizens of the spirit realm, especially at night. Here are a few that people have discussed.

If you see your child is talking to someone who isn't there, you should set food out and show respect if you know what's good for you.

Don't whistle at night or you summon phi and other spirits, especially out in the jungles. Also, don't sharpen a blade at night, or a phi will visit you in your dreams. When dogs howl at night, they see a phi. If you put the tears of a dog in your eye, you will see phi, too.

Don't play hide and seek at night, because phi will hide you from human sight. Some accounts say that they will have a price for 'helping' you out. Interestingly, owl hoots are an omen of death for someone close to the person listening.

If you eat by yourself at night while it's raining, a VERY specific type of phi will come. I won't name it here, but it's the one everyone really hates, who's always going on about how huuuuuuuungry they are.....

You don't eat pumpkin or pumpkin seeds at a funeral, or the deceased will get up and eat them with you. The accounts are unclear how many times this has happened in the past, but it has happened enough that it's now frowned upon.

Never look between your legs or you might see a phi behind you.

If you comment too loudly about something you spot on the road, it will follow you home. And if you hear your name being called and can't find where it's coming from, you do NOT want to answer.

A significant number of superstitions are very specific about how you should sleep. You shouldn't sleep in a big bed with unused pillows, or the phi swing by to make themselves at home and use the pillows and space you aren't. Further, if you put your hands on your chest at night as sleeping you're inviting phi to enter into you.Supposedly, sleeping with a knife under the bed will keep many bad spirits and nightmares away.

If you dream of touching poop, money is coming soon.If you dream that someone asks to come live with you, you're pregnant. If you're dreaming of a snake (possibly a Nak) this often means a man really likes you, possibly a future husband. If you have a nightmare, you're advised to go to the bathroom, whisper it to your poop, then flush it away with the aid of the Phi Kee.

Back in the waking world, if your foot itches, you need to kick someone's ass.It's ok to compare kids to cute dogs, but not to monkeys in many families.

In the kitchen, a number of taboos have been passed on from generation to generation. For example, Soaking sticky rice too long until it has turned blood red is bad luck. And it could make you ill.  Also, you don't sing in the kitchen or you will marry an elder. If you don't cover your thip khow sticky rice container, you won't find a spouse. Or you might get divorced.

Never step on, or sit on a bag of rice. It offends the spirits and brings bad luck. Don't sleep after eating or you'll become a 'snake.'

You shouldn't wash dishes at night because you'll wash away your luck and money.If you don't wash the dishes properly, you'll get ugly kids. Young girls are encouraged to wash dishes for beauty. Also known as the oldest trick in the book.

Don't eat out of the pot or else you will have a hard time giving birth. Which leads us to a few of superstitions involving babies.

Never say anything bad about other people's children while pregnant or it will manifest in your own child.When a baby smiles at you, you might lose hair.Don't show a baby their reflection or their teeth won't come in. It is also said that if your newborn pees on you in the first few days, they will love you all of their life. On the other hand, touching a baby's cheeks will cause them to be fussy over their next meal.

An interesting number of beliefs are connected to hair. Cutting your hair on your birthday shortens your lifespan.Cutting your hair in the middle of the week is bad luck. If you cut your hair at night, you will shorten your parents lives. (So, in short, never cut your hair on your birthday midweek at night!) Finally, after you cut your hair, burn it or someone can use it to cast spells on you.

Lao custom says you shouldn't play with your shadow, or your shadow will choke you when it gets the chance. This may explain why you don't often see Lao shadow puppetry.

Don't try on wedding outfits for fun or you'll never get married for real. Related to this, you don't want to be a bridesmaid too many times either for the same reason.

Somewhat randomly, don't look at stray dogs rutting, or you will get pink eye.

For the photographers among us, if you take a picture of 3 people at a time, if they're close or related, they will wind up moving far away from each other.Don't take pictures at night outside or you will get 'things' you don't want...

So, that's a start that hopefully encompasses a good variety of options for writers to consider for possible stories, whether horror, fantasy, or historical. What are some of the traditions and superstitions that you know?

The Catullus Conundrum

Catullus was an ancient Roman poet whose life holds significant lessons, ok, warnings, for other poets.

While he enjoys a significant readership after death, he lasted into the modern world of letters not so much as an outcome of intentional effort but undignified happenstance. The legendary account, which may or may not be true, as always seems to be the case with poets, is that his work was discovered as a stopper in a barrel of wine in some medieval basement. Egad.

There are no reports over whether it was a particularly good barrel of wine, at that.

Bear in mind, there are plenty of Roman poets whose beloved words were deliberately kept intact by appreciative audiences, scholarly and otherwise. But I keep the legend of Catullus in my mind that we can never be truly certain our work will survive into the next age. Nor can we be certain how it will be discovered. This can be both dreadful and reassuring, the chaos of the poet's calling.

Some people get a bit manic and testy, saying as a writer, you shouldn't be concerned about the longevity of your work. They argue it hamstrings you, it takes you out of the present and you lose a certain dynamic and value to your voice if you're just trying to become famous and widely-read. Every writer treads a line between quality and the mercenary, trying to keep one's self and family fed without gauche pandering and compromise.

If you're a writer, and one with a very finite lifetime, you should be taking your craft seriously enough to be of use and entertainment to others, even as you appreciate that fate is arbitrary and whimsical. Obviously, looking at my own body of work, that's not a belief that all of your subjects are supposed to be serious, but when you write comedically, you need to be writing the best comedy you can.

For all of your accolades and honors, it is entirely possible within a century, and even more so in the centuries beyond, that if you do survive, it will only be a fraction of your output, and what future generations find compelling may well be that which you least expect.

You may find your work in the H.P. Lovecraft scenario, where no one gave his work much attention while living.  Consider the issue of Weird Tales where his classic, "The Call of Cthulhu" appears first. The editors thought Elliot O'Donnell's "Ghost Table" would be the one that moves copies that month. Lovecraft wasn't among the ones editors expected to have a great readership years or even nearly a century since his death. I guess you could call it "The Last Laugh of Cthulhu."

My best advice on this is to write as well as you can, whenever possible, because you don't want to be that writer where you have a body of amazing, soul-searing work, but the only example that survives into the next century is your "Ode to a Skanky Possum."

There's another tale that in the old days, a Roman general had a servant constantly whispering in his ear, "Memento Mori." Even on the days of his greatest triumphs, he was constantly reminded he was mortal and could be brought down by anything in the world. Catullus, on the other hand, reminds us as poets that in our art, anyone can survive, both the high and the low. So try to leave a good body of work behind.

Or at least make friends with people who keep cellars filled with barrels of wine for centuries. Something.

DEMONSTRA: The Deep Ones, an overview

We're counting down the days until my new book DEMONSTRA starts shipping, clocking in at nearly 170 pages of Lao American speculative poetry from Innsmouth Free Press. So, as promised, one thing I'm doing until January 1st is discussing the different poems and their inspiration, including some of the images and sources that went into composing the poem.

"The Deep Ones" is one of my more frequently republished poems, first appearing in Illumen in 2007, and my book On The Other Side Of The Eye (Sam's Dot Publishing, 2007) in that same year. It was also included in two editions of Future Lovecraft from Innsmouth Free Press (2011) and Prime Books (2012).

I decided to include "The Deep Ones" in DEMONSTRA because it fits in thematically with the other poems, and because  On The Other Side Of The Eye is harder and harder to come by even on the reseller's market. I think it is a particular key to adding an extra dimesnion to some of the other poems in the collection, including "The Dream Highway of Ms. Mannivongsa."

 Interestingly, Asian American poet Beau Sia had a poem, "I'm So Deep," that made the rounds on Russel Simmons' Def Poetry Jam a few years back, but I hadn't run into it in the years leading up to "The Deep Ones," which I would say had been in development for a few years, most likely between 2004-2006, based on the notes I've found.

We can argue "The Deep Ones" has its foremost roots in the first time I read "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" and when I began playing the old Call of Cthulhu role-playing game. This would have been around 1987, because I'd started with Chaosium's 3rd edition (1986) and Del Rey's 1987 collection The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre.

Formally, H.P. Lovecraft described them in "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" by writing: 

"I think their predominant color was a greyish-green, though they had white bellies. They were mostly shiny and slippery, but the ridges of their backs were scaly. Their forms vaguely suggested the anthropoid, while their heads were the heads of fish, with prodigious bulging eyes that never closed. At the sides of their necks were palpitating gills, and their long paws were webbed. They hopped irregularly, sometimes on two legs and sometimes on four. I was somehow glad that they had no more than four limbs. Their croaking, baying voices, clearly used for articulate speech, held all the dark shades of expression which their staring faces lacked ... They were the blasphemous fish-frogs of the nameless design - living and horrible."

I've mentioned before that I have a particular dislike for frogs and toads, so the horror of these entities resonate with me. You can see one cinematic interpretation of the Deep Ones in Brian Yuzna and Stuart Gordon's Dagon. 

In some ways, "The Deep Ones" takes a big cue from my 2001-2002 short story, "The True Tale of Yer," which debuted in the Minnesota Historical Society's Bamboo Among the Oaks. The key device being inverting the antagonist to reconsider things from the perspective of The Other. It also has some influences from the poems I'd been writing like "Before Going Feral," inspired by H.G. Wells The Island of Dr. Moreau. 

The challenge with this and other poems in this vein is that I want to be true and consistent with the source material, while expanding our sense of it. At the same time I was intrigued to see if we could create a great poem where someone can come into it without any familiarity with the work of H.P. Lovecraft.

Would "The Deep Ones" in such a context simply be read as an abbreviated version of T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men"? In the writing process, I often considered Eliot's hoary line "We are the hollow men. We are the stuffed men. Leaning together. Headpiece filled with straw," which was alluded to in the climax to Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

Is there value in connecting the Lao experience to that of Lovecraft's fictional Deep Ones? Should we question this process? Many Americans and others have no conception of Laos yet. Arguably, there's no prevailing idiom or turn of phrase they can readily connect Lao to, the way they might connect communities like the Vietnamese to the term "Boat People" or the Cambodians to "The Killing Fields." It would be quite a stretch, considering the Deep Ones are fearsome oceanic beings, while Laotians come from a landlocked-nation. If someone seriously considered Lao the Deep Ones of Southeast Asia, well, I think there are other problems in place with thought ought to be dealt with. But for an idle thought exercise, I think it's an interesting argument, and hopefully will prod other Lao writers and artists to keep pushing the metaphors that might more aptly apply to our community.

At the heart of it all, I hope our language stretches, our imaginations take us to places we might not have previously thought we'd be, whether it's a Nak at the supermarket, a Lao on the moon, or a Deep One in a Vientiane guest house.

In the aftermath of our wars that left more Lao living outside of Laos than within it, I think, from an artist's perspective, we have more than enough impetus to say all bets are off, but who do we become, mingling with so many other cultures, so many other ways of being.

Vietnamese rebels vs. the French

During the early 20th century, the French found themselves in conflict with a number of Vietnamese "pirates" such as those depicted above.

At least one collector has amassed a particularly impressive collection of postcoards that had been made chronicling the fight between French marines and their local support troops, and the pirates. Many of the images are very graphic by today's standards, showing beheaded pirates and prisoners, but if you've got the stomach for it, it's an interesting look at a bygone era.

One incident in 1908 when a group of Vietnamese attempted to poison an entire garrison drew a particularly strong response judging from the number of postcards created presumably not only to document the incident but to serve as a warning to others who might consider it. You can see the collection at: http://www.postcardman.net/vietnam_rebels.html

Long Hidden call for Speculative Fiction due July 31st.

Long Hidden has issued a call for speculative fiction set between 1400-1920 C.E. with protagonists marginalized in their time & place. Due July 31. The pay is 5 cents/word. This one has a lot of potential and I strongly encourage you to submit material.

Alternate Lao History

It's been a little while since we've done a discussion on Steampunk, alternate history and secret history especially from a Lao perspective. There are some perennial questions about the value of creating alternate histories when the real histories as seen from the perspectives of those who lived it are so hard to find to begin with.

So, if I tell you that in 2488, the Lao perfected a six-legged chicken but got bought out by a visiting Colonel Sanders who was serving in an advisory capacity for a foreign agricultural aid program with Pearl Buck, do I as a fiction writer need to feel responsible if someone believes that or spends time trying to debunk the idea?

Or: You haven't read Shakespeare until you've read him in the original Lao. That's always a great tall tale.

How interesting Lao American literature might become if we opted for the "Balderdash" approach to teaching our culture. To present utterly outrageous claims so often that we can only really hold onto our culture by doing enough research to know how and why those claims ARE outrageous.

Given how much the average Lao person knows of their own history right now, a 'straight' telling of our journey certainly hasn't gotten us very far.

In the meantime, here's something that may be of help for emerging Lao writers.

Largely adapted from the Martin Stuart Fox chronology of Lao history, and assuming the standard Asian zodiac, for those of you writing historic Lao fiction and other stories, the following can serve as a helpful guideline to get your chronological bearings.

The first year listed is the Lao year, the second year is the European/American calendar year:

1896: Foundation of Lan Xang by Fa Ngum. 1353, Year of the Snake.

2022: Vietnamese invade Lan Xang. 1479, Year of the Pig.

2091: Xetthathirat briefly unifies kingdom of Lan Xang and Lan Na. 1548, Year of the Monkey.

2103: Capital moved to Viang Chan from Luang Prabang. 1560, Year of the Monkey.

2106 to 2118: Burmese invasions of Lan Xang. 1563-75, Year of the Ox to Year of the Pig.

2181 to 2238: Reign of Surinyavongsa. 1638-95, Year of the Tiger to Year of the Pig.

2184 to 2185: First Europeans reach Viang Chan. 1641-42, Year of the Snake to Year of the Horse.

2250, 2256: Lan Xang splits into 3 kingdoms. 1707 and 1713,  Year of the Pig, Year of the Snake.

2322: All 3 kingdoms become tributaries to Siam. 1779, Year of the Pig.

2369 to 2371: Chao Anouvong’s war of independence.1826-1828, Year of the Dog to Year of the Rat.

2363 to 2383: Earliest Hmong migrations into Laos. 1820-40, Year of the Nak to Year of the Rat.

2404: French explorer Henri Mouhot arrives in Luang Prabang. 1861, Year of the Rooster.

2410: French Mekong Expedition maps rivers through Lao territories. 1867, Year of the Rabbit.

2430: Auguste Pavie, first French vice-consul arrives in Luang Prabang. 1887, Year of the Pig.

2436: French seize Lao territories east of Mekong, ceded by Siam.1893, Year of the Snake.

2442: Administrative reorganization of Laos under Resident Superieur 1899, Year of the Pig.

2444 to 2450: ‘Holy Man Revolt’ in Southern Laos. 1901-07, Year of Ox to Year of the Goat.

2450: Franco-Siamese Treaty establishes modern Lao borders. 1907. Year of the Goat.

2451 to 2453: Leu insurrection in Northern Laos. 1908-10, Year of the Monkey to Year of the Dog.

2457 to 2459. Leu revolt in Luang Namtha and Ho Tai revolt in northeast. 1914-16, Year of the Tiger to Year of the Nak.

2462 to 2465: Hmong insurrection in Northern Laos. 1919-22, Year of the Goat to Year of the Dog.

2466: First session of Indigenous Consultative Assembly. 1923, Year of the Pig.

2484: Franco-Thai war leads to Loss of Lao territories on the West Bank of Mekong. 1941, Year of the Snake.

2488: Lao independence declared. 1945, Year of the Rooster.

2493: US recognizes Laos as an independent state. 1950, Year of the Tiger.

2507 to 2516. Secret bombings of Laos. 1964 to 1973, Year of the Nak to Year of the Ox

2518: End of the War for Laos. 1975, Year of the Rabbit.

2555: Present day. 2012, Year of the Nak.

[Poem] Minotaur. Spanish translation

A recent Spanish translation of my poem "Minotaur" was generously provided by Caroline Arroyo of Madrid. "Minotaur" first appeared in BARROW, 2009 from Sam's Dot Publishing. With my deepest thanks to her for a fine job in capturing it's literal and inner cores.

Minotauro

No hay nada detrás de la sedosa capa roja del matador.
Si buscas al hombre,
Mira hacia un lado.
                    Carga furiosa, un carbón rabioso
                    Atrapado en el momento
Para espadachines españoles
Envueltos en una escena inevitable

Intercambiando lugares con su asesino.
                        Algo muere dentro de el,
                        Sin saber por qué.

Minotaur

There is nothing behind the red silk cape of the matador.

If you’re looking for the man,

                               Look to the side.

                              Charging furious, a raging coal

Caught in the moment

For Spanish swordsmen

Wrapped up in an inevitable scene

Switching places with his killer,

                                 Something dies within him,

                                 Not knowing why.

[Poem] The Grass (Thai Translation)

หญ้า

ท่ามกลางทุ่งหญ้าใบเขียวมรกต
แม้แต่ศรีมหาโพธิ์
ยังต้องพึ่งผืนแผ่นดินเดียวกัน

Among jade grass blades
Even mighty bodhi trees
Must share the same earth

Translated by Joy Panigabutra-Roberts, 2012/2555. 

"The Grass" first appeared in Tanon Sai Jai, 2009

[Poem] Kinnaly

While "No Regrets" was ultimately chosen as the poem included in the Poetry Parnassus in London this year and "The World Record Anthology," there were six poems that had been submitted for consideration: "On A Stairway In Luang Prabang," which is being read on the BBC later this month, "Zelkova Tree," "The Shape," "Thread Between Stone," and "Kinnaly."  Originally, "Kinnaly" appeared in my 2009 book Tanon Sai Jai:

Kinnaly 

So many days in flight, in the air or on stage
Lately, you seem half human, half bird,
Almost mythic, always beautiful and magic.

Bridging worlds beyond words and page,
Where trees have a special music and cities a special poetry,
We pass on our hopes one song, one note at a time until one day

Every sword is set aside happily to build instead,
A nation of peaceful students bright as summer lightning
Whether in Washington or Vientiane, Paris or the Bay.

We grow, step by step and smiling,
Not just to remember today,
But to change and transform before returning to the heavens,

Holding the dreams of elders and our own as one,

Not just for the world made by yesterday
But for the best stars yet to be.

[Poem] Peaks of Buddha

In the aftermath of the Poetry Parnassus in England this month and the onset of the London Olympic games, it seems like a good time to present an older poem of mine that first appeared in the Minnesota-based journal, Whistling Shade in the early 2000s: 

Peaks of Buddha (Originally appeared as N'est ce pas Olympus)

High in the mountains
        the air seems so thin
        poets tell me
        the movies lied

There is no wise man at the peak
        no enlightened sermons at the summit
        clad in cartoon robes
        with the fabulously poor hygiene
        reserved for only the holiest bonze

Strewn across the tourist trap
        former camps, lingering with peyote and marijuana
        bones of the shattered, snickering with
        feigned novelty and righteousness,
        a young woman's festive undergarment
        lost during a drunken search for peonies

Sage advice is best found buried
        in a sheath of scribbles
        nestled by your heart
        trust in poetry, they whisper

In a cracked mirror found in the brambles
        I barely looked human
        holding my face in my palm
        I could only wince and place it back down.

[Poem] Nerakhoon

I've received a few questions this week about how I feel regarding the Amy Senser verdict in the death of Anousone Phanthavong. She received 41 months, which is much more than Vincent Chin's killers ever served. But it does not bring back a young man whose family needed him. I think of the words of Winston Churchill: "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of a beginning."

While I'm still pondering how I will write a specific poem responding to the case, one of my poems that has been coming back to my mind since the case began is "Nerakhoon." It is a poem I originally wrote in homage to Thavisouk Phrasavath's classic film of the same name. This was first published in my book Tanon Sai Jai in 2009. I'll let the rest speak for itself.

Nerakhoon 

I love our traditions but our ways must change, too,
If I want a tomorrow worth having.

We have rites and ways of setting things right,
But it‟s sad we need to have those already.

That we‟ve wronged each other so often before
It‟s become routine.

I can forgive all of this, but

What a place this might be where the soul doesn‟t need a map,
A reason, an order to be kind.

For such a world,
I would happily release one last turtle to the sea,
A raven to the winds, whatever needs to be free

If only I could believe and trust
Words and hearts and destiny.

[Poem] Notes Regarding the Living Heart

In recognition of Secretary of State Clinton's historic visit to Laos today, I'm presenting a poem from my 2009 book, Tanon Sai Jai:

Notes Regarding the Living Heart

A single seed can turn into a forest.
A single heart can transform a nation.
To be brave is jai ka.
To be generous is jai kwan.
To test the body, climb a mountain.
To test the soul, meet another.
To find happiness, meet as strangers,
But don't stay that way.
With a sabaidee, greet the days, one by one.
With a khop jai and a smile, do what you can
To change worlds, even one inch, one hand at a time.

That is the path of the jai,
Human and forever growing.

[Poem] Observing The Oblivious

I squat

Among bamboo and scaly
Things

Like a stone-faced deity
From Bayon.

The ant devours my puny home
To make his own.

Fears my magnifying glass
And sole.

We never look up enough.
Who knows

If the feet of God
Aren’t about to leave their own mark

On our fragile spines,
As they uncurl

Beneath his summer home ceiling

                  When he isn’t looking.

From On the Other Side of the Eye, 2007