Barbara Jane Reyes and What's At Stake?

Barbara Jane Reyes is asking the great question of "What's At Stake?" on her blog.

Yes, again.

One of the passages that's been resonating with me as I consider the journey of Lao artists is:
So many Pinay writers I know are so preoccupied with the autobiographical “I.” Preoccupied, and then painfully self-conscious that they are so preoccupied with that autobiographical “I.” This is not a criticism as much as it is an observation. I get it. We grow up in this country, never encountering people like ourselves in books, on TV, in movies. We think we are invisible. We need to write in order to make ourselves visible, but then become so self-conscious of our visibility, and our attempts to be visible, and then dismissive of our own attempts to be visible.

I see what she's seeing. I still wonder about a number of reports of Lao Americans who started an MFA program than dropped out, and somehow feel like they shouldn't still try to get their voices out there.

To me, if I wasn't validated by a former colonial/imperial power's literary program, it wouldn't stop me from writing or trying to express myself. But given my background as a trasncultural adoptee, I wonder if that's an artifact from a certain zone of privilege I was raised with that many others did not have as they struggled to fit in.

I lost count of how many Lao American refugees have thought the answer was to fit in, to not be a nerd, to not be 'stupid' which to me would be: exercising your individuality, to be able to think beyond lockstep conformity. God, I hate that shit. Under normal circumstances, it isn't normally a part of Lao behavior. But someone told them a lie that to succeed and thrive, you have to keep your head down and not make waves or peep about your dreams, your memories, your experiences. That somehow, it would hold you back.

There are a lot of moments where I hate the fact that most of our most amazing artists and community builders are changing the world in spite of our community, not because of it. That we've made such a hot crucible of dysfunction barely any expressive voices have come forward from our community after 40+ years in the US. It kills me every time I see an emerging Lao writer giving up or selling out because of some shitty writers workshop or MFA program. That so few of us can't take criticism or stand our ground and stand by our words, even when they're a personal distillation of our experience.

I don't want to sound hostile to MFA programs, but they're seriously bumping off Lao literati or neutering a bunch as far as I can see. Only a handful of us are escaping decent writers, although I haven't seen many books from them yet. And as my annual reminder to my students: You don't need an MFA to get published or to win awards. You need to be GOOD.

I took plenty of heat in the late 90s and early 2000s when I started sharing more and more of my work. Which, as I look back on it, went through a strange evolution.

Between 1990 to 1997 most of my work was what could be characterized as speculative poetry, and hardly anything autobiographical or cultural. From about 1997 to 2003, my poetry often flew in the face of Hmong and Asian American writers, especially in Minnesota. I felt pretty weird taking on subjects no one else was taking on. For one journal, I also notoriously submitted work that was almost always an offbeat take on their lofty theme. I got criticized a lot for being 'off-message' and not singing "Kumbayah" with everyone most of the time. I just wanted to write about things. All sorts of things. Big things, little things, new ideas, funny things, sad things, old ideas, scary things, fantastic things, family things. Whatever. Maybe not as extreme as Cheech Marin's speech in From Dusk til Dawn, but close. And I didn't give a shit if it didn't sound the same as my fellow performers' work. That was never the point of the art to me. I wasn't going to stop presenting my work because someone told me the word "No." Because that's not true art if you back down at the slightest resistance.

And now, 2007 on, I've gone back to speculative poetry, although more culture is infused within it.

I guess it's like being a version of Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer who liked the other reindeer but was perfectly fine going my own. Solidarity is nice once in a while but I didn't see it as a raison d'etre.

It's not like I was an English Major or an MFA, but I knew what I wanted to write and I was committed to being rigorous about it. The results of my arc speaks for itself. But it gets pretty disheartening seeing all of the Lao voices we lost on the way who stopped because they thought they couldn't cut it.

Writing it all out, I find myself once again turning back to the words of Langston Hughes, who said in his essay "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,":

"We younger Negro artists who create now intend to express our individual dark-skinned selves without fear or shame. If white people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, it doesn't matter. We know we are beautiful. And ugly too. The tom-tom cries and the tom-tom laughs. If colored people are pleased we are glad. If they are not, their displeasure doesn't matter either. We build our temples for tomorrow, strong as we know how, and we stand on top of the mountain, free within ourselves."

It's a powerful essay from 1926 when expressing such a sentiment was more dangerous than most of us can appreciate today. I find myself seeing a parallel with my conversations with other Lao poets when Hughes says: So I am ashamed for the black poet who says, "I want to be a poet, not a Negro poet," as though his own racial world were not as interesting as any other world. I am ashamed, too, for the colored artist who runs from the painting of Negro faces to the painting of sunsets after the manner of the academicians because he fears the strange unwhiteness of his own features. An artist must be free to choose what he does, certainly, but he must also never be afraid to do what he must choose.

Barbara Jane Reyes goes on about how others have seen her work as foundational to them and she says:  I am deeply touched by this, but if I didn’t have my head on straight or develop nerves of steel, that would either turn me into a raging egomaniac, or paralyze me, or freak me the hell out, and also cause me to recoil.

I'm glad she has her head on straight (most of the time).

But anyway, like a good Kubrik movie, this is just an interrogative post, not a declarative. Think over some of what she's said, and see what else resonates with you: http://www.barbarajanereyes.com/2013/05/29/whats-at-stake-that-damn-question-again/

HP Lovecraft and Lao American Literature

As we start making the final edits to DEMONSTRA, a few great questions came up on Twitter about how one might see the work of H.P. Lovecraft through a post-colonial lens, and how, surprisingly, the themes of Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos might be a better influence on our literature than many examples of contemporary writing, whether from the Asian American community or mainstream literature.

I would say most Lao would rather hear an old ghost story than The World According to Garp or the angst of Dawson's Creek.  Many Lao can more easily connect to Blade Runner and Prometheus over American Beauty, Crash, or The Great Gatsby.

It's still a nascent idea, but in an applied example, I finished composing a Lao American take on "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Doom That Came to Sarnath," and I'm satisfied enough with them that they'll be included in my new book DEMONSTRA. I wanted to test if  the language and tropes of Lovecraft might be more effective to comment on the sensitive inner experiences of the Lao in diaspora. It's an experiment for Lao horror. As I asked before: What's honestly scary to a 600-year old culture that was secretly carpet-bombed and Agent Oranged during our bloody 20-year civil war?

As the non-profit organization Legacies of War points out: "From 1964 to 1973, the U.S. dropped more than two million tons of ordnance on Laos during 580,000 bombing missions—equal to a planeload of bombs every 8 minutes, 24-hours a day, for 9 years" of our conflict. Over 30% failed to explode immediately and still contaminate the Lao countryside 40 years since the end of that bombing. Between that and other ways the war was fought, I think it's safe to say it alters the dynamics of fear and our culture's sense of the cosmos.

Presenting the Lao journey as an analogue to "Shadows Over Innsmouth" might be more apt than the usual "USA A-OK" narratives on the market. "Peculiar folks are nice at first then turn into monstrous freaks who have horrific traditions they want you to join?" That's a bit of a hyperbolic oversimplification to be sure, but still. The seeds are there to be sown.

Colonials destroyed much of Lao and Southeast Asian history, violating and rewriting our story to aid their agendas. Horror as our literary and artistic response may work more effectively. In Rescue Dawn, Air America, Operation Dumbo Drop, and others, Lao are typically faceless, coolies, or the enemy. In the works of writers like H.P. Lovecraft we can start to flip the script. I think it's an unexpected direction from where we can start from, and avoid many of the colonial and feudal trappings that disempower us. Horror could also be a way to discuss things that are still very sensitive for many of the living participants.

Might some avoid a censor who is unsure if a particular tale is discussing the Secret War for Laos or merely recounting an alien war between Great Old Ones and Elder Things, with poor humanity caught between mindless horrors duking it out? I think our people can connect to that metaphor, as easily as using a retelling of the battles in the Ramayana to veil discussions of our recent past.

Granted, if we frame our history through such a lens, we might ask, tongue-in-cheek: "Are the Great Old Ones NATO or Warsaw Pact to the Elder Things/Elder Gods?"

"Nice plane when it's not bombing us, guided by alien processes from continents away in a bizarre language..."  How can we not see the themes H.P. Lovecraft pondered and not have them resonate?

Consider Lovecraft's Fungi from Yuggoth, who appear in "The Whisperer in Darkness." We find they take the brains of their victims to their land in shiny metal cylinders. Science fiction horror, or do we see that as a Lao diaspora metaphor for the brain drain while we board the metal cylinders of a DC-10 or a 747 to escape our civil war?

Our current visual/literary vocabulary regarding Laos is currently Vietnam-lite. We see artists presenting it as a variation of Apocalypse Now, Platoon or Full Metal Jacket. Laos needs art without reinforcing cliche.   After 160 pages of poetry in DEMONSTRA, and plenty more I could have thrown in, I think having Lao American experience expressed through speculative literature works better than aping certain other poets today.

Horror and the fantastic allow ways to interrogate the present and past, vital for those recovering from civil war and sensitive topics For Post-colonials like Laos, can we invert the lens where we're the Other?

If Lao American poetry sounds like diced Joy Luck Club, we're not breaking new ground. Poetry probes that for which there are no words. Lao need new models. A key question for DEMONSTRA, and Lao poetry, was "Can a Lovecraftian lens, or the vocabulary of horror, address our diaspora best?"

Considering the alternative of imitating stock colonial narrative, I think we are obliged to try.

Concept: Alternate History of the Lao Secret War, with Lovecraftian Steampunk Zombies...

So, today in the workshop, I've been giving more thought to a concept of how to develop a story or poem regarding an Alternate History of the Lao Secret War through a Lovecraftian Zombie Steampunk lens.

Do we start it with Herbert West and his pals making a sidetrip to French Indochina? Or perhaps young Herbert West tried sourcing components for his serum from Lao botanicals in 1920s?

Because the mandate is to take it in new directions and to keep it subversive, punk and more than a pastiche, we need to consider alternate perspectives of how we could see the incident. Possibly, can we see it from the perspective of a shaman or Lao doctor at the time?

Where might we jump in with such a story?

"...he soon saw that the perfection of his process, if indeed possible, would necessarily involve a lifetime of research. It likewise became clear that, since the same solution never worked alike on different organic species, he would require human subjects for further and more specialised progress." appears close to the beginning, and provides us some clues of where we could take it, although the more likely point would be when West goes traveling after World War I.

The additional challenge is: What can we say interesting regarding this this material? At the present moment, I would say explore a Theravada Buddhist approach and worldview in counterbalance to West or his predecessor's assertion that life is a mechanistic, comprehensible process.  As I discussed in a recent poem of mine, "Digging for Corpse Oil," we might find the initial attitude towards someone like West's experiments are not strictly prohibited or horrific to the locals, so what would it require for them to take a dim view of such experiments? Or, how might they succeed where West and similar researchers fail?

Would French colonists or other foreigners be supportive, disruptive, or instigators? Or, should the story completely bypass them entirely and give the Lao more agency in this? What might prompt someone to explore reanimating the dead? Is it a response to the Jiang Shi tradition, or is there another reason why Lao might see the need to have a reanimated corpse around, even if it means unlocking forbidden knowledge?

How would the sudden presence of both steampunk technology and Lovecraftian process impact the path towards the Secret War for Laos? Would it avert it, or who would we see scrambling to master the science and magic first? Would the shamans of the various tribes suddenly become politically very valuable? But what would the cost of their alliance be? Would there be charlatans trying to get in on the act, who pay the ultimate price when their skills prove ineffective?

The story of the Toad King Khankaak who speaks of magic that humans abused until almost all life was wiped out might be an interesting legend to work with as we press forward with this. The Lao belief that the dead eat the vapors from food offerings might also be something to bear in mind while incorporating steampunk elements.

So, where do we add a truly transgressive taboo and where do we root horror from a Lao perspective? What are the unspoken customs and traditions that Lao would be horrified at seeing violated, without descending into mere gore?

Some thoughts on Lao American Poetry

A poetry manuscript should have a clear urgency without compromising our capacity for surprise. To me, a poetry manuscript isn't last word on a topic, even from you. Doubt is healthy. A good one leaves you with questions and wanting more.

Some poems you write like popcorn, others, you sculpt to slip past bone and hook into a soul.

Lao American poetry isn't CONSTANT subversion, but I'd hate to see you get out of practice. If, as a poet, you're using your work to create petty, bourgeois safety for yourself, and no one else, you need to check your priorities. Among a post-colonial poet's concerns must be how do we create a capacity for artistic risk if one must live among former occupiers. Lao American poets need to consider this and always be sure to keep their sense of privilege in check.

Poetry is an introspective form, but if you're sharing it, you should explore your paths to inclusion. Good poems don't have to exclude your community. Don' t treat them like idiots, don't dumb it down for them. Don't make it over their heads simply as an exercise in ego. It's one thing to be a challenging read, but one must still ultimately be readable.

We must beware using the idea of 'book' or 'performance' to create validations that reinforce disparity i.e. "No book=Not Artist" because that's disempowering and violates our mandate to create art forms that we can all latch into as a community. But if you HAVE to make a book, I don't see it should be same effect you get reading any other book of poems. Always shake it up.

A book of poetry is monopolized by Euromerican ideas of it by most publishers. There's a horrific sameness and monotony to the presentation of so many books of poetry these days. But that's not the same route post-colonials NEED to take.

For Lao American poets, who's to say we can't include maps and charts and diagrams? Art, and so on? A book only of words is certainly possible, but it should be our choice, not because we think: Oh, that's how French and Germans and English people do it. We must explore what it is to create a book that is of value to our people, but not so valued people stick it away rather than engage with it.

One concern I often have brought forward to me is the idea that remembering the journey of your elders and ancestors is important. I concur, but it is not the same as doing what they did. I hope other poets recognize this in also not a permit to throwing the old ways under the bus. It is a call to evaluate our old ways to see if they're timeless or if there is room for flexible interpretation.