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4.59 AVERAGE
4.59 AVERAGE
Bao Phi has been a major presence on the U.S. performance poetry scene for many years, known for his dynamic crowd-rousing performances. His Song I Sing is an important book, with a lot of important truths to tell, expressed with necessary anger and passion, as well as a shimmering volubility and breadth of creative imagination that can sometimes be exhilarating.
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One poem that seized my interest early on was "The Nguyen Twins Find Adoration in the Poetry World." As I interpret it, this poem paints satirical portraits of two different imaginary Vietnamese-American poets. One of them, "Joan Nguyen," is described as having achieved acclaim in the academic poetry world by writing "safe" poems that prettify her tragic cultural heritage so as to garner the insincere praise of self-styled liberal white American readers. Joan is described as being in an interracial relationship with a white man with whom she shares "a fine/but modest house." The other of the two imaginary poets described in the poem, "Jesus Nguyen," has achieved acclaim in the slam poetry milieu by flaunting his political credentials despite "mispronouncing almost every Vietnamese word/that he uses in his poetry (all three of them)." As yet, I don't fully understand what this poem is doing. I think interracial relationships, such as those that are common between Asian-American women and white men, are a topic that could potentially give rise to a lot of profound discussion, but in this poem they seem just to be used as a shorthand for conventionality/conventional-mindedness, which I find a bit unsettling. I also find it a bit troubling that "safeness" and femaleness seem to be portrayed as going hand in hand in this poem -- why is the "safe" academic poet in this poem female while the fiery radical poet is male (it could be accidental, of course, but nonetheless this is a detail that struck me on my first reading of the poem)? Likewise, I don't as yet fully grasp the meaning of the apparently satirical "calling-out" of the fictional Jesus Nguyen's inability to pronounce Vietnamese words correctly. A lot of second-generation and third-generation Asian-Americans are not fluent in their ancestors' language, but to satirize them or to suggest that they are less authentic because of this seems, at first glance, to run counter to the message of inclusiveness ("there are a lot of different kinds of Asian-Americans and that's OK") that other poems in this book seem to embrace. A lot to think about here. I'll be revisiting this one over and over, for sure. (This rambling should not be taken as a criticism of the poem, but more as just a recording of my preliminary responses to it.)
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I think Song I Sing would be a great "companion book" to teach alongside Claudia Rankine's Citizen. Both books revolve around themes of racial identity and racism, with significant portions of each book being devoted to the topic of racially-tinged incidents of police violence. "8 (9)," a poem in Phi's book that was inspired by the 2006 police killing of Hmong-American teen Fong Lee, has a lot of resonances with the sections in Rankine's book that deal with the recent killings of Trayvon Martin and Mark Duggan, for example. There are also similarities in the ways that Phi and Rankine criticize the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina through their verse (here's a quote from "And the Waves," Phi's prose poem about Vietnamese-Americans living in New Orleans who were affected by Katrina: "Why weren't we on the news? Not even after they wanted to build a garbage dump smack dab in the middle of our community?//It's like this country only allows us one grief at a time. Your people, you had that war thing. That's all you get. Shut. The fuck. Up.").
The parallels between Phi and Rankine become particularly striking in the closing pages of their respective books. "Race," the last poem in Song I Sing and a Best American Poetry 2006 honoree (selected for inclusion in the prestigious anthology by poet-editor Billy Collins), is a sort of fantasy/wish-fulfillment poem about a trio of fictional Vietnamese-American youths (a straight man, a straight woman, and a queer man) who agree to a street-racing competition with an antagonist named Todd Landers who, ludicrously, sports "kanji tattoos on his arms he thought said/Strength in love but really said something more like/Unreliable delivery service." After squarely defeating Landers, one of the triumphant youths turns to Landers and utters the final words in the book: "...in case you haven't noticed/this was all a/Race/and you lost."
Compare this with the hauntingly-similar-yet-different last section of Rankine's book, in which the protagonist, a Black woman, comes home from a session of tennis. At home, she is accosted by her partner: "Did you win? he asks.//It wasn't a match, I say. It was a lesson."
Are these moments of our lives races, or are they lessons? Arguably, it's some of each. Like Rankine's Citizen, Bao Phi's Song I Sing will leave you thinking about this, and much more.
---
One poem that seized my interest early on was "The Nguyen Twins Find Adoration in the Poetry World." As I interpret it, this poem paints satirical portraits of two different imaginary Vietnamese-American poets. One of them, "Joan Nguyen," is described as having achieved acclaim in the academic poetry world by writing "safe" poems that prettify her tragic cultural heritage so as to garner the insincere praise of self-styled liberal white American readers. Joan is described as being in an interracial relationship with a white man with whom she shares "a fine/but modest house." The other of the two imaginary poets described in the poem, "Jesus Nguyen," has achieved acclaim in the slam poetry milieu by flaunting his political credentials despite "mispronouncing almost every Vietnamese word/that he uses in his poetry (all three of them)." As yet, I don't fully understand what this poem is doing. I think interracial relationships, such as those that are common between Asian-American women and white men, are a topic that could potentially give rise to a lot of profound discussion, but in this poem they seem just to be used as a shorthand for conventionality/conventional-mindedness, which I find a bit unsettling. I also find it a bit troubling that "safeness" and femaleness seem to be portrayed as going hand in hand in this poem -- why is the "safe" academic poet in this poem female while the fiery radical poet is male (it could be accidental, of course, but nonetheless this is a detail that struck me on my first reading of the poem)? Likewise, I don't as yet fully grasp the meaning of the apparently satirical "calling-out" of the fictional Jesus Nguyen's inability to pronounce Vietnamese words correctly. A lot of second-generation and third-generation Asian-Americans are not fluent in their ancestors' language, but to satirize them or to suggest that they are less authentic because of this seems, at first glance, to run counter to the message of inclusiveness ("there are a lot of different kinds of Asian-Americans and that's OK") that other poems in this book seem to embrace. A lot to think about here. I'll be revisiting this one over and over, for sure. (This rambling should not be taken as a criticism of the poem, but more as just a recording of my preliminary responses to it.)
---
I think Song I Sing would be a great "companion book" to teach alongside Claudia Rankine's Citizen. Both books revolve around themes of racial identity and racism, with significant portions of each book being devoted to the topic of racially-tinged incidents of police violence. "8 (9)," a poem in Phi's book that was inspired by the 2006 police killing of Hmong-American teen Fong Lee, has a lot of resonances with the sections in Rankine's book that deal with the recent killings of Trayvon Martin and Mark Duggan, for example. There are also similarities in the ways that Phi and Rankine criticize the media coverage of Hurricane Katrina through their verse (here's a quote from "And the Waves," Phi's prose poem about Vietnamese-Americans living in New Orleans who were affected by Katrina: "Why weren't we on the news? Not even after they wanted to build a garbage dump smack dab in the middle of our community?//It's like this country only allows us one grief at a time. Your people, you had that war thing. That's all you get. Shut. The fuck. Up.").
The parallels between Phi and Rankine become particularly striking in the closing pages of their respective books. "Race," the last poem in Song I Sing and a Best American Poetry 2006 honoree (selected for inclusion in the prestigious anthology by poet-editor Billy Collins), is a sort of fantasy/wish-fulfillment poem about a trio of fictional Vietnamese-American youths (a straight man, a straight woman, and a queer man) who agree to a street-racing competition with an antagonist named Todd Landers who, ludicrously, sports "kanji tattoos on his arms he thought said/Strength in love but really said something more like/Unreliable delivery service." After squarely defeating Landers, one of the triumphant youths turns to Landers and utters the final words in the book: "...in case you haven't noticed/this was all a/Race/and you lost."
Compare this with the hauntingly-similar-yet-different last section of Rankine's book, in which the protagonist, a Black woman, comes home from a session of tennis. At home, she is accosted by her partner: "Did you win? he asks.//It wasn't a match, I say. It was a lesson."
Are these moments of our lives races, or are they lessons? Arguably, it's some of each. Like Rankine's Citizen, Bao Phi's Song I Sing will leave you thinking about this, and much more.
Bao Phi is a poet and author from my neighborhood (Phillips!) in south Minneapolis, and I think this was his first book. This is a brilliant, powerful, raw, funny, and just gripping collection of poems that really hit me some kind of way.
Full review at Little Book Jockey. Poetry about race is always hard to read. I was actually supposed to read this back in December 2015 for an Asian-American lit class but got sick and missed those classes. I think I would have gotten more out of it had I been there for the discussions. Still, it’s a good collection full of powerful poems.
This book is like that cool cousin, that one that is a shade older but just enough to be more hip because they had the time and the resources to get there before you. You might feel envy (and I do), you might feel challenged (and I do), but you are better for having them in your life.
I read this book for my Multicultural Resources for Diverse Communities class.
Phi, B. (2011). Sông I sing: poems. Minneapolis: Coffeehouse Press.
Paperback | $16 | ISBN-13: 978-1-56689-279-7| 113 pages | A Poetry
What does it mean to be invisible? What does it feel like to have one’s life experiences go unrecognized in a country one calls home? For Vietnamese Americans such as Bao Phi, these questions are not theoretical; they are a reality.
Bao Phi is a spoken word artist who has won the Minnesota Grand Spam twice and whose poetry has been included in several anthologies. For his first book, Sông I sing, Phi presents the complexity of Vietnamese American life through poetry. Each poem tells its own story. Some poems, such as the ones in the section entitled “The Nguyễns,” represent the stories of particular people across America. The voices portrayed in these poems are so clear and individually unique to each represented life that it does not matter whether the people portrayed in the poem are real or whether they’re simply examples Phi has composed. From a Katrina survivor who dreams of feeding the fellow victims who ignore her presence (Phi, 2011, p. 39) to the bodybuilder who longs to beat up his childhood tormentor (p. 20-22), Phi covers the range of human emotions. In the introductory poem to this section Phi writes that “they’re more related than any of them will ever know” (p. 17), yet the lack of a single Vietnamese American story is immediately clear as each consecutive poem shows a different side of life, sometimes contradicting the sentiments expressed in the previous poem. Anger and sadness are recurring emotions throughout the poems.
While the entire book is politically charged, many poems speak directly to the political situation in America. Several poems are reactions to real events such as John McCain’s comments about “gooks” in 2000 and the murder and framing of a Hmong American by a police officer. For these poems, Phi quotes or describes the situations and follows these descriptions by his poetic responses. In other poems, such as “FOBulous” and “Reverse Racism,” Phi parodies the general atmosphere of life in America.
In the first poem of the book, Phi writes that this book “is for us, my people” (p. 1). Sông I sing is a place where Vietnamese Americans can finally see their experiences recognized. However, this book is also a valuable asset for non-Vietnamese Americans. In presenting the variety of experiences and lives normally left unrecognized in American culture, Sông I sing gives insight into the lives of others. For anyone who believes discrimination against Asian Americans does not exist in this country, this book is a wake-up call. It presents not only the realities but also the emotional impact that discrimination has on people.
Sông I sing is not appropriate for a young audience because some of the poems utilize vulgar language and sexual imagery. However, this book would be an excellent selection for an adult Asian American History Month or multicultural display. Individual poems could be used for a teen or adult library program on writing and identity, followed by an exercise in which participants write their own identity-related poetry. Those including this book in programming or classes might also consider showing the recording of Bao Phi performing “You Bring Out the Vietnamese in Me” featured on Coffeehouse Press’s website or any of the Bao Phi recordings on YouTube.
(n.d.) Sông I sing. Coffeehouse Press. Retrieved from http://coffeehousepress.org/shop/song-i-sing/.
Phi, B. (2011). Sông I sing: poems. Minneapolis: Coffeehouse Press.
Paperback | $16 | ISBN-13: 978-1-56689-279-7| 113 pages | A Poetry
What does it mean to be invisible? What does it feel like to have one’s life experiences go unrecognized in a country one calls home? For Vietnamese Americans such as Bao Phi, these questions are not theoretical; they are a reality.
Bao Phi is a spoken word artist who has won the Minnesota Grand Spam twice and whose poetry has been included in several anthologies. For his first book, Sông I sing, Phi presents the complexity of Vietnamese American life through poetry. Each poem tells its own story. Some poems, such as the ones in the section entitled “The Nguyễns,” represent the stories of particular people across America. The voices portrayed in these poems are so clear and individually unique to each represented life that it does not matter whether the people portrayed in the poem are real or whether they’re simply examples Phi has composed. From a Katrina survivor who dreams of feeding the fellow victims who ignore her presence (Phi, 2011, p. 39) to the bodybuilder who longs to beat up his childhood tormentor (p. 20-22), Phi covers the range of human emotions. In the introductory poem to this section Phi writes that “they’re more related than any of them will ever know” (p. 17), yet the lack of a single Vietnamese American story is immediately clear as each consecutive poem shows a different side of life, sometimes contradicting the sentiments expressed in the previous poem. Anger and sadness are recurring emotions throughout the poems.
While the entire book is politically charged, many poems speak directly to the political situation in America. Several poems are reactions to real events such as John McCain’s comments about “gooks” in 2000 and the murder and framing of a Hmong American by a police officer. For these poems, Phi quotes or describes the situations and follows these descriptions by his poetic responses. In other poems, such as “FOBulous” and “Reverse Racism,” Phi parodies the general atmosphere of life in America.
In the first poem of the book, Phi writes that this book “is for us, my people” (p. 1). Sông I sing is a place where Vietnamese Americans can finally see their experiences recognized. However, this book is also a valuable asset for non-Vietnamese Americans. In presenting the variety of experiences and lives normally left unrecognized in American culture, Sông I sing gives insight into the lives of others. For anyone who believes discrimination against Asian Americans does not exist in this country, this book is a wake-up call. It presents not only the realities but also the emotional impact that discrimination has on people.
Sông I sing is not appropriate for a young audience because some of the poems utilize vulgar language and sexual imagery. However, this book would be an excellent selection for an adult Asian American History Month or multicultural display. Individual poems could be used for a teen or adult library program on writing and identity, followed by an exercise in which participants write their own identity-related poetry. Those including this book in programming or classes might also consider showing the recording of Bao Phi performing “You Bring Out the Vietnamese in Me” featured on Coffeehouse Press’s website or any of the Bao Phi recordings on YouTube.
(n.d.) Sông I sing. Coffeehouse Press. Retrieved from http://coffeehousepress.org/shop/song-i-sing/.
“Reverse Racism,” is very good. And the last poem was smart. Liked how he did what he did.
His writing can be violent, but there's a reason: he's trying to elicit a response from the reader, and he's encouraging the reader to see, to understand, that this is how minorities experience a majority society, especially in a majority society where there is a long and brutal history of racial/ethnic oppression. It is provocative, but that's the point. To provoke thought.
He's saying, "This is what we feel, violence in our past, violence in our present, and we're afraid of violence in our future, so this is our anger, fleshed out, written in bloody violence. Do you really think we could feel this much anger for no reason? Wake up!"
His writing can be violent, but there's a reason: he's trying to elicit a response from the reader, and he's encouraging the reader to see, to understand, that this is how minorities experience a majority society, especially in a majority society where there is a long and brutal history of racial/ethnic oppression. It is provocative, but that's the point. To provoke thought.
He's saying, "This is what we feel, violence in our past, violence in our present, and we're afraid of violence in our future, so this is our anger, fleshed out, written in bloody violence. Do you really think we could feel this much anger for no reason? Wake up!"
emotional
reflective
slow-paced