AMERICAN POETS
IN THE 21ST CENTURY
The American Poets in the Twenty-First Century Series
EDITOR CLAUDIA RANKINE
2002
American Women Poets in the 21st Century:
Where Lyric Meets Language
Edited by Claudia Rankine and Juliana Spahr
2007
American Poets in the 21st Century:
The New Poetics
Edited by Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell
2012
Eleven More American Women Poets in the 21st Century:
Poetics across North America
Edited by Claudia Rankine and Lisa Sewell
American Poets in the 21st Century
Poetics of Social Engagement
Edited by
Claudia Rankine
and
Michael Dowdy
Wesleyan University Press · Middletown, Connecticut
Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
© 2018 Wesleyan University Press
All rights reserved
Manufactured in the United States of America
Designed by Dennis Anderson and Scott Cahoon
Typeset in Sabon and The Sans by Passumpsic Publishing
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
available upon request
Hardcover ISBN: 978-0-8195-7829-7
Paperback ISBN: 978-0-8195-7830-3
Ebook ISBN: 978-0-8195-7831-0
5 4 3 2 1
Cover illustration: Photo by Dave Bleasdale, August 23, 2011. FlickR.com.
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
xii
Introduction by Michael Dowdy
1
ROSA ALCALÁ
29
POEMS
From Undocumentaries
Everybody’s Authenticity 29
Job #6 30
Autobiography 30
From The Lust of Unsentimental Waters
Rita Hayworth: Double Agent 31
Patria 32
From MyOTHER TONGUE
Paramour 34
Voice Activation 36
Dear María 37
POETICS STATEMENT
Poetics of Not-Mother Tongue
39
ROSA ALCALÁ’S AESTHETICS OF ALIENATION
41
by John Alba Cutler
BRIAN BLANCHFIELD
56
POEMS
From Not Even Then
One First Try and Then Another 56
If the Blank Outcome in Dominoes Adds a Seventh Side to Dice 57
From A Several World
According to Herodotus 57
Edge of Water, Nimrod Falls, Montana 58
Pferd 59
Eclogue Onto an Idea 61
The History of Ideas, 1973–2012: Education 62
The History of Ideas, 1973–2012: Ut Pictura Poesis 63
Eclogue in Line to View The Clock by Christian Marclay 64
Open House 65
Edge of Water, Moiese, Montana 66
POETICS STATEMENT
from “On Abstraction, Permitting Shame, Error and Guilt, Myself the Single Source”
67
IN THE DARK WITH BRIAN BLANCHFIELD
70
by Chris Nealon
DANIEL BORZUTZKY
84
POEMS
From The Book of Interfering Bodies
The Book of Interfering Bodies 84
From In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy
Decomposition as Explanation 86
Illinois 89
From The Performance of Becoming Human
Let Light Shine Out of Darkness 95
The Performance of Becoming Human 97
POETICS STATEMENT
the continuum: a broken introduction
103
PARDON ME MR. BORZUTZKY / IF
106
by Kristin Dykstra
CARMEN GIMÉNEZ SMITH
122
POEMS
From Odalisque in Pieces
Prepartum 122
from Goodbye, Flicker
Hungry Office 123
Hans Hated Girls 123
From Milk & Filth
(Llorona Soliloquy) 124
(And the Mouth Lies Open) 125
from “Parts of an Autobiography” 126
From Be Recorder
from “Be Recorder” 128
POETICS STATEMENT
132
“THE CALL FOR REVERSAL IS NATIVE”
The Paradox of the Mother Tongue in the Work of Carmen Giménez Smith
134
by Joyelle McSweeney
ALLISON ADELLE HEDGE COKE
149
POEMS
From Off-Season City Pipe
The Change 149
From Blood Run
Skeletons 154
Ghosts 154
Skeletons 155
From Streaming
We Were in a World 156
America, I Sing You Back 157
POETICS STATEMENT
Quipu: a poetic
158
RESURRECTING THE SERPENT, REACTIVATING GOOD EARTH
Allison Hedge Coke’s Blood Run
161
by Chadwick Allen
CATHY PARK HONG
184
POEMS
From Dance Dance Revolution
Roles 184
From series “St. Petersburg Hotel,” Dance, Dance Revolution
1. Services 185
Song That Breaks the World Record 186
From Engine Empire
Ballad in O 188
Ballad in A 189
Market Forces Are Brighter Than the Sun 189
Notorious 190
POETICS STATEMENT
192
BUILDING INHERITANCE
Cathy Park Hong’s Social Engagement in the Speculative Age
194
by Danielle Pafunda
CHRISTINE HUME
213
POEMS
From Musca Domestica
A Million Futures of Late 213
From Alaskaphrenia
Comprehension Questions 214
Hume’s Suicide of the External World 215
From Shot
I Exhume Myself 217
Induction 219
POETICS STATEMENT
Hum
220
UTTER WILDERNESS
The Poetry of Christine Hume
223
by Molly Bendall
BHANU KAPIL
238
POEMS
From The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers 238
From Incubation: A Space for Monsters 239
From Humanimal, a Project for Future Children 243
From Schizophrene 246
From Ban en Banlieue 247
POETICS STATEMENT
248
PERPETUAL WRITING, INSTITUTIONAL RUPTURE, AND THE PERFORMANCE OF NO
The Poetics of Bhanu Kapil
251
by Eunsong Kim
MAURICIO KILWEIN GUEVARA
267
POEMS
From Postmortem
Postmortem 267
From Poems of the River Spirit
A City Prophet Talks to God on the 56c to Hazelwood 268
The Easter Revolt Painted on a Tablespoon 269
From Autobiography of So-and-so: Poems in P
rose
Self-Portrait 270
Mirror, Mirror 271
A Tongue Is a Rope Bridge 271
The American Flag 272
From POEMA
Against Metaphor 272
At rest 273
Pepenador de palabras 275
Poema without hands 275
POETICS STATEMENT
276
MAURICIO KILWEIN GUEVARA’S SCAVENGER INFRAPOETICS
279
by Michael Dowdy
FRED MOTEN
295
POEMS
From Hughson’s Tavern
Rock the party, fuck the smackdown 295
five points, ten points 296
From B Jenkins
gayl jones 297
william parker/fred mcdowell 298
frank ramsay/nancy wilson 299
From The Feel Trio
from series block chapel
[whenever I listen to cornelius I think of cecily] 300
[welcome to what we took from is the state] 300
from I ran from it and was still in it
[I burn communities in shadow, underground, up on the] 301
[I often amount to no more than a stylistics. airrion] 302
[I am foment. I speak blinglish. at work they call me] 302
From The Little Edges
the gramsci monument 303
From The Service Porch
it’s not that I want to say 304
POETICS STATEMENT
306
SOUNDING THE OPEN SECRET
The Poetics of Fred Moten
306
by Brent Hayes Edwards
CRAIG SANTOS PEREZ
321
POEMS
From from unincorporated territory [saina]
from aerial roots 321
from aerial roots 322
from aerial roots 323
from aerial roots 324
from aerial roots 325
ginen aerial roots 326
from aerial roots 327
POETICS STATEMENT
329
TIDAL POETICS
The Poetry of Craig Santos Perez
332
by J. Michael Martinez
BARBARA JANE REYES
342
POEMS
From Poeta en San Francisco
[objet d’art: exhibition of beauty in art loft victorian claw tub] 342
[Kumintang] 343
[why choose pilipinas?] 343
[why choose pilipinas, remix] 344
[galleon prayer] 345
[ave maria] 346
[prayer to san francisco de asís] 347
(ā' zhə fīl) 347
From Diwata
The Bamboo’s Insomnia 348
Polyglot Incantation 349
The Villagers Sing of the Woman Who Becomes a Wave Who Becomes the Water Who Becomes the Wind 350
In the City, a New Congregation Finds Her 351
Aswang 352
POETICS STATEMENT
To Decenter English
353
ACTS OF POETRY IN TROUBLED TIMES
Barbara Jane Reyes’s Anticolonial Feminist Voicings
355
by Martin Joseph Ponce
ROBERTO TEJADA
370
POEMS
From Exposition Park
Debris in Pink and Black 370
From Full Foreground
Untitled [Not a word of my surrounding] 374
Untitled [Impulse in the great organism of terror] 375
From Why the Assembly Disbanded
Kill Time Objective 377
POETICS STATEMENT
The Acoustic Uncanny
378
MARGINAL EROTICS
Roberto Tejada’s Sexiness
380
by David Colón
EDWIN TORRES
398
POEMS
From The PoPedology Of An Ambient Language
Dirtspeech 398
The Theorist Has No Samba! 399
Barrio/Barrier 401
From Yes Thing No Thing
Of Natural Disasters And Love 401
From Ameriscopia
And In Trying 402
Viva La Viva 403
From “Dome” 405
POETICS STATEMENT
Bodycatch/Mindtrap: No Edge But In Things
410
THE US IS POROUS
Edwin Torres in Other Words
413
by Urayoán Noel
Contributors
431
Index
437
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The editors would like to thank Suzanna Tamminen for her support of this project. Many thanks as well to Francisco Aragón for his initial vision and advocacy for this volume. Permission to reprint copyrighted material has been obtained whenever possible. The editors gratefully acknowledge permission to reprint from the following sources:
Rosa Alcalá. “Autobiography,” “Everybody’s Authenticity,” and “Job #6” from Undocumentaries © 2010 by Rosa Alcalá, and “Patria” and “Rita Hayworth: Double Agent” from The Lust of Unsentimental Waters © 2012 by Rosa Alcalá are all reprinted with the permission of Rosa Alcalá and Shearsman Books, Exeter, UK, www.shearsman.com. “Paramour,” “Voice Activation,” and “Dear María” from MyOTHER TONGUE. Copyright © 2017 by Rosa Alcalá. Reprinted with the permission of the Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Futurepoem Books, www.futurepoem.com.
Brian Blanchfield. “If the Blank Outcome in Dominoes Adds a Seventh Side to Dice” and “One First Try and Then Another” from Not Even Then: Poems © 2005 by Brian Blanchfield, edited by Robert Hass, Brenda Hillman, and Calvin Bedient, are reprinted with the permission of the Regents of the University of California and the University of California Press. “According to Herodotus,” “Edge of Water, Nimrod Falls, Montana,” “Pferd,” “Eclogue Onto an Idea,” “Education,” “Ut Pictura Poesis,” “Eclogue in Line to View The Clock by Christian Marclay,” “Open House,” and “Edge of Water, Moiese, Montana” from A Several World © 2014 by Brian Blanchfield are all reprinted with the permission of Nightboat Books, New York, NY, www.nightboat.org. Excerpt from “On Abstraction, Permitting Shame, Error and Guilt, Myself the Single Source” from Proxies: Essays Near Knowing © 2016 by Brian Blanchfield is reprinted with the permission of Nightboat Books, New York, NY, www.nightboat.org.
Daniel Borzutzky. “The Book of Interfering Bodies” from The Book of Interfering Bodies © 2011 by Daniel Borzutzky, and “Decomposition as Explanation” and “Illinois” from In the Murmurs of the Rotten Carcass Economy © 2015 by Daniel Borzutzky are all reprinted with the permission of Nightboat Books, New York, NY, www.nightboat.org. “Let Light Shine Out of Darkness” and “The Performance of Becoming Human” from The Performance of Becoming Human © 2016 by Daniel Borzutzky are reprinted with the permission of Brooklyn Arts Press, Brooklyn, NY, www.brooklynartspress.com.
Carmen Giménez Smith. “Prepartum” from Odalisque in Pieces, by Carmen Giménez Smith. © 2009 Carmen Giménez Smith. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press. “(Llorona Soliloquy)” from Milk & Filth, by Carmen Giménez Smith. © 2013 Carmen Giménez Smith. Reprinted by permission of the University of Arizona Press. “Hungry Office” and “Hans Hated Girls” reprinted from Goodbye, Flicker: Poems. Copyright © 2012 by Carmen Giménez Smith and published by the University of Massachusetts Press. Excerpts from “Parts of an Autobiography” from Can We Talk Here © 2011 by Carmen Giménez Smith, published by Belladonna Books, Brooklyn, NY, www.belladonnaseries.org, are reprinted with the permission of the author. “(And the Mouth Lies Open)” is reprinted with the permission of Carmen Giménez Smith. Excerpts from “Be Recorder” are used by permission of the author.
Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. “Th
e Change” is reprinted by permission from Off-Season City Pipe (Coffee House Press, 2005). “We Were in a World” and “America, I Sing You Back” are reprinted by permission from Streaming (Coffee House Press, 2014). Copyright © 2005 and 2014 by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke. www.coffeehousepress.org. “Skeletons,” “Ghosts,” and “Skeletons” from Blood Run © 2006 by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, published by Salt Publishing, Cambridge, UK, www.saltpublishing.com, are reprinted by permission of Allison Hedge Coke.
Chadwick Allen. “Resurrecting the Serpent, Reactivating Good Earth: Allison Hedge Coke’s Blood Run” is adapted from “Serpentine Figures, Sinuous Relations: Thematic Geometry in Allison Hedge Coke’s Blood Run,” published in American Literature, vol. 82, no. 4. © 2010, Duke University Press. All rights reserved. Republished by permission of the copyright holder, Duke University Press. www.dukeupress.edu.
“Snake Mound” and “Stone Snake Effigy” from Blood Run © 2006 by Allison Adelle Hedge Coke in Chadwick Allen’s “Resurrecting the Serpent, Reactivating Good Earth: Allison Hedge Coke’s Blood Run” are reprinted by permission of the author.
Cathy Park Hong. “Roles,” “Song That Breaks the World Record,” “St. Petersburg Hotel Series: 1. Services,” from Dance Dance Revolution by Cathy Park Hong. Copyright © 2007 by Cathy Park Hong. Used by permission of W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. “Ballad in A,” “Ballad in O,” “Market Forces Are Brighter Than the Sun,” from Engine Empire: Poems by Cathy Park Hong. Copyright © 2012 by Cathy Park Hong. Used by permission of W. W. Norton and Company, Inc. “Notorious” is reprinted with the permission of Cathy Park Hong.