A Portrait of the Self as Nation: New and Selected Poems

by Marilyn Chin

Overview

“Dark, playful, incisive and heartbreaking.” —San Diego Union-Tribune

Spanning thirty years of dazzling work—from luminous early love lyrics to often-anthologized Asian American identity anthems, from political and subversive hybrid forms to feminist manifestos—A Portrait of the Self as Nation is a selection from one of America’s most original and vital voices. Marilyn Chin’s passionate, polyphonic poetry is deeply engaged with the complexities of cultural assimilation, feminism, and the Asian American experience; she spins precise, beautiful metaphors as she illuminates hard-hitting truths.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393358162
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	07/28/2020
Pages:	208
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong. She is the author of five previous poetry collections and a novel. Her work has appeared in The Norton Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, The Norton Anthology of Literature by Women, and Best American Poetry, among other publications. She is the recipient of the Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize for lifetime achievement, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the PEN/Josephine Miles Literary Award, and fellowships from the United States Artists Foundation and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, among other honors. A chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, she lives in San Diego, California.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xv

From Dwarf Bamboo (1987) 1

The End of a Beginning 3

We Are a Young Nation, Uncle 4

Untrimmed Mourning 5

The Cricket 6

After My Last Paycheck from the Factory … 7

We Are Americans Now, We Live in the Tundra 9

A Chinaman's Chance 11

First Lessons 13

Ode to Anger 15

Repulse Bay 17

Two Poems for Mieko

Unrequited Love 19

Love Poem from Nagasaki 20

From The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty (1994) 21

Altar 23

The Barbarians Are Coming 24

How I Got That Name 25

A Break in the Rain 29

Tiananmen, the Aftermath 31

Gruel 32

Barbarian Suite 33

The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty 35

Moon and Oatgrass 42

His Parents' Baggage 44

The Survivor 45

Alba 46

Composed Near the Bay Bridge 47

Summer Love 48

Turtle Soup 49

A Portrait of the Self as Nation 50

Song of the Sad Guitar 56

Beijing Spring 58

Autumn Leaves 59

The Floral Apron 60

From Rhapsody in Plain Yellow (2002) 61

That Half Is Almost Gone 63

The Colonial Language Is English 65

Blues on Yellow 66

Chinese Quatrains (the Woman in Tomb 44) 67

Take a Left at the Waters of Samsara 69

Millennium, Six Songs 71

Cauldron 74

Variations on an Ancient Theme: The Drunken Husband 77

Bold Beauty 79

The True Story of Mortar and Pestle 80

The True Story of Mr. and Mrs. Wong 81

Tonight While the Stars Are Shimmering 82

So, You Fucked John Donne 84

Get Rid of the X 85

Identity Poem (#99) 86

To Pursue the Limitless 88

Horse Horse Hyphen Hyphen 90

Hospital Interlude 93

Hospital in Oregon 94

Rhapsody in Plain Yellow 95

From Hard Love Province (2014) 101

Alba: Moon Camellia Lover 103

Formosan Elegy 105

Twenty-Five Haiku 107

Black President 110

One Child Has Brown Eyes 111

Study Hall, Deterritorialized 112

Sonnetnese 113

Summer Sleep 114

Nocturnes 115

Every Woman Is Her Own Chimera 118

Brown Girl Manifesto Too 122

Beautiful Boyfriend 123

Quiet the Dog, Tether the Pony 126

Four Buddhist Tales from Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen (2009) 127

After Enlightenment, There Is Yam Gruel 129

Why Men Are Dogs 130

The Theory of the One Hand 131

Lantau 133

Selected Translations 135

Snow Falls on China's Land by Ai Qing 137

From Untitled Epigrams (for Our Youth) Ai Qing 140

A,D,R,E,N,A,L,I,N Gozo Yoshimasu 143

Five Poems Ho Xuan Huong 150

Poetry Camp, A New Prose Poem Sequence (2015) 153

Poetry Camp 155

Thanksgiving at the Brewsters 156

Dead Buddha 157

First Duck 158

Dogdom 160

Indigestion 161

Dao, New Poems 163

Dao 165

Chaos Had No Eyes 166

Scary Poem 167

Immigrant Dream: Eat Crow 168

Little Box Opens Up 169

Bamboo, the Dance 172

For Mitsuye Yamada on Her 90th Birthday 173

Postscript: Brown Girl Manifesto, One of Many 177

Peony Apocalypse 180

Notes 181

Index 189

Editorial Reviews

"Chin delivers a wealth of riches: jokes and puns; poems as blues songs, mythic allegories, or letters; poems in translation and poems influenced by received forms."

Poets.org - Maya Phillips

"Throughout this collection, a great showcase of her oeuvre, Chin demonstrates her mastery of the English language and her fluency in others, her impressive visions of global history, her colloquial humor, and her commitment to speaking truth to power."

Kathryn Pratt Russelln Book Review

"Bold and unapologetic.… Ranging from clear, radiant lyrics to experimental, subversive pieces."

Elizabeth Lund

"Throughout this collection, a great showcase of her oeuvre, Chin demonstrates her mastery of the English language and her fluency in others, her impressive visions of global history, her colloquial humor, and her commitment to speaking truth to power."

American Book Review - Kathryn Pratt Russell

"I praise Marilyn Chin’s poetry!"

Gwendolyn Brooks

"Marilyn Mei Ling Chin draws on ancient cultural sources and at the same time reflects something wholly Western, urban, and contemporary—so that we have here two kinds of sophistication combined, in proportions uniquely determined by her strong personal sensibility. The results are strong with an authentic and captivating strangeness, beauty and offbeat wit."

Denise Levertov

"These poems have a fearless life on every page, moving big themes into language, and pointing to past silences. But for all its sociable music, this poetry is also a serious and moving meditation on an inner life. Not simply the inner life of the poet but also—as the title suggests—the inner life of the nation that poet recognizes. This work is poised over both the public spaces where art and ethics are made, as well as the private reaches of a self where—as the poems show—an Asian American woman can weigh both identity and freedom. Marilyn Chin is a major voice. And this is a book to be treasured."

Eavan Boland

"Marilyn Chin’s poems excite and incite the imagination through their brilliant cultural interfacings, their theatre of anger, ‘fierce and tender,’ their compassion, and their high mockery of wit. Reading her, our sense of the possibilities of poetry is opened further, and we feel again what an active, powerful art it can be."

Adrienne Rich