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Prose and Cons is all about contemporary English-language literary texts written by writers that were not raised in Anglophone places, whether this is in prose or poetry. This episode, Cassandra is presenting you the works of Marilyn Chin. She is a Chinese American poet, writer, activist, and feminist who—together with rhymes and violence—creates social and racial commentary within her beautiful poetry.
If you bring along to Breaking Form Book Club an extra bottle of chardonnay, we'll read some poems from books you may have missed....If you'd like to support Breaking Form:Review the show on Apple Podcasts here.Buy our books: Aaron's STOP LYING is available from the Pitt Poetry Series. James's ROMANTIC COMEDY is available from Four Way Books.Read more about Zando and Sarah Jessica Parker's SJP Lit: https://zandoprojects.com/imprints/sjp-lit/ Read the entirety of Marilyn Chin's poem "How I Got that Name" Read the title poem of Denis Johnson's collection The Incognito Lounge. You can read more about the poet 'Annah Sobelman here, including a few poems.Randall Jarrell's poem "Losses" appeared in August 1944 issue of Poetry Magazine. It is the title poem of his 1948 book (Harcourt). You can read Jarrell's NY Times obit here.
Poet and professor Evie Shockley introduces poems woven together by a subtle thread of committed attention to place and what happens there—the places of language, self, ancestry, and tragedy. She introduces Mónica de la Torre engaging with languages as wild topography ("Is to Travel Getting to or Being in a Destination"), Marilyn Chin uncovering the political territory of the self ("A Portrait of Self as Nation: 1990-1991"), and Nikky Finney channeling the ancestors into the present ("The Girlfriend's Train"). Shockley closes with poem that sits with the terrible resonances of place names turned into a catalog of violence ("les milles").Find the full recordings of de la Torre, Chin, and Finney reading for the Poetry Center on Voca:Mónica de la Torre (2008)Marilyn Chin (1996)Nikky Finney (2019)You can also watch a 2019 recording of Evie Shockley reading work commissioned as part of the Poetry Center's Art for Justice series.Have you checked out the new Voca interface? It's easier than ever to browse readings, and individual tracks can be shared. Many readings now include captions and transcripts, and we're working hard to make sure every reading will have these soon.
Marilyn Chin was born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon. She received a B.A. from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst in Chinese Literature and an M.F.A. from the University of Iowa. Her books have become Asian American classics and are taught in classrooms internationally. Presently, Chin is Professor Emerita at San Diego State University and serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Her most recent book is A Portrait of the Self as Nation: New and Selected Poems (W.W. Norton, 2018). Chin's other books of poems include Hard Love Province, Rhapsody in Plain Yellow, Dwarf Bamboo, and the Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty. Her book of wild girl fiction is called Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen. She has won numerous awards, including the distinguished Ruth Lilly Prize for Lifetime Achievement in poetry from the Poetry Foundation, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the United States Artist Foundation Award, the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship at Harvard, the Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship, two NEAs, the United Artist Foundation Award, the Stegner Fellowship, the PEN/Josephine Miles Award, five Pushcart Prizes, a Fulbright Fellowship to Taiwan, a Lannan Residency and others. In 2017, she was honored by the Asian Pacific Islander Caucus and the California Assembly for her activism and excellence in education. Visit her website.Read poems by Marilyn Chin Poetry FoundationAcademy of American Poets
Marilyn Chin, a 2015 Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards winner for poetry, joins The Asterisk* to discuss loss, mourning and the importance of speaking grief, the influence of her grandmother, and the longevity of her poetry. Born Mei Ling Chin in Hong Kong, she was five when her family moved to Portland, Oregon, where her father transliterated her name to Marilyn. (He had a crush on Marilyn Monroe.) After graduating from the University of Massachusetts, Chin earned a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Iowa. In “Hard Love Province,” her AWBA-winning fourth volume of poetry, she experiments with quatrains, sonnets, haiku, allegories and elegies in precise words whose effect are brazen, icy yet inflamed. “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,” noted Adrienne Rich, a mentor to Chin until she died in 2012. “Reading her, our sense of the possibilities of poetry is opened further, and we feel again what an active, powerful art it can be.” Chin sat down with The Asterisk* in the fall of 2020 from her home in San Diego, Calif. A professor emerita at San Diego State University and a Chancellor at the Academy of American Poets, she won the $100,000 Ruth Lily Poetry Prize and the 2019 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award. Chin also earned a Stegner fellowship, four Pushcart prizes and a Fulbright fellowship.
Connor and Jack are joined by special guest (and Close Talking social media manager) Corey China for this discussion of Marilyn Chin's devastating poem "Blues on Yellow." In the conversation they discuss the history of anti-Asian hatred and violence in the United States, the struggles for cross-community solidarity, and the resonances of the poem's use of the blues form. Blues on Yellow By: Marilyn Chin The canary died in the gold mine, her dreams got lost in the sieve. The canary died in the gold mine, her dreams got lost in the sieve. Her husband the crow killed under the railroad, the spokes hath shorn his wings. Something’s cookin’ in Chin’s kitchen, ten thousand yellow-bellied sapsuckers baked in a pie. Something’s cookin’ in Chin’s kitchen, ten thousand yellow-bellied sapsuckers baked in a pie. Something’s cookin’ in Chin’s kitchen, die die yellow bird, die die. O crack an egg on the griddle, yellow will ooze into white. O crack an egg on the griddle, yellow will ooze into white. Run, run, sweet little Puritan, yellow will ooze into white. If you cut my yellow wrists, I’ll teach my yellow toes to write. If you cut my yellow wrists, I’ll teach my yellow toes to write. If you cut my yellow fists, I’ll teach my yellow toes to fight. Do not be afraid to perish, my mother, Buddha’s compassion is nigh. Do not be afraid to perish, my mother, our boat will sail tonight. Your babies will reach the promised land, the stars will be their guide. I am so mellow yellow, mellow yellow, Buddha sings in my veins. I am so mellow yellow, mellow yellow, Buddha sings in my veins. O take me to the land of the unreborn, there’s no life on earth without pain. Find us at our website: www.closetalking.com/ Find us on Facebook at: facebook.com/closetalking Find us on Twitter at: twitter.com/closetalking Find us on Instagram: @closetalkingpoetry You can always send us an e-mail with thoughts on this or any of our previous podcasts, as well as suggestions for future shows, at closetalkingpoetry@gmail.com.
On this episode, we get to talk on this episode with the legend, superstar, and self-proclaimed “baby yoda” Marilyn Chin. We talk about her long journey toward building Asian-American poetics, being the Nicki Minaj for so many young writers (in that all of these bitches are her sons), how she’s balancing quarantine with Youtube rabbit holes, and so much more. Plus, the play-by-play of a legendary physical brawl, in which she scraped with a beloved American poet. NOTE: Make sure you rate us on Apple Podcasts and write us a review!
In season two, episode eight of Gotham Writers' Inside Writing, host Josh Sippie conducts a panel discussion with Fractured editor Tommy Dean and writer K-Ming Chang. They discuss how to navigate the limited word count of flash fiction, manipulating the three-act structure, and how to know if what you're writing is any good. Links mentioned in the show: From K-Ming, here's a link to her personal website: https://www.kmingchang.com/ She mentioned the story Black Jesus and Other Superheroes, which can be found here: https://lithub.com/black-jesus/ She also recommended a few books: Know the Mother, by Desiree Cooper: https://www.wsupress.wayne.edu/books/detail/know-mother House on Mango Street, by Sandra Cisneros: https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/27844/the-house-on-mango-street-by-sandra-cisneros/ Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, by Marilyn Chin: https://www.amazon.com/Revenge-Mooncake-Vixen-Manifesto-Tales/dp/0393331458 From Tommy, here's a link to his personal website: https://tommydeanwriter.com/ And the link to his literary mag, Fractured: https://fracturedlit.submittable.com/ Lastly, Tommy mentioned Literistic: https://home.literistic.com/
Chinese-American poet, Marilyn Chin, and "Get Rid of the X"
Today's poem is Marilyn Chin's "Turtle Soup." See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.
Recorded by Marilyn Chin for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on May 13, 2020. www.poets.org
Recorded by Marilyn Chin for Poem-a-Day, a series produced by the Academy of American Poets. Published on March 1, 2020. www.poets.org.
Today’s poem is The Barbarians Are Coming by Marilyn Chin.
John Gery has published seven books of poetry, most recently, Have at You Now! (2014). His work has appeared throughout the U.S., Europe, and Canada and has been translated into seven languages. Gery has also published criticism on poets ranging from John Ashbery to Marilyn Chin, as well as a critical book on the nuclear threat and American poetry. He has co-authored a guidebook to Ezra Pound’s Venice and a biography of Armenian poet Hmayeak Shems, has co-edited four books of poetry and criticism, and has worked as a collaborative translator from Serbian, Italian, Chinese, Armenian and French. His awards include fellowships from the NEA, the Fulbright Foundation, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and the University of Minnesota. A Research Professor of English at University of New Orleans and Director of the Ezra Pound Center for Literature, Brunnenburg, Italy, he lives in New Orleans with his wife, poet Biljana Obradovic, and their son Petar.Read "Rapture" by John Gery.Recorded On: Tuesday, February 9, 2016
John Gery has published seven books of poetry, most recently, Have at You Now! (2014). His work has appeared throughout the U.S., Europe, and Canada and has been translated into seven languages. Gery has also published criticism on poets ranging from John Ashbery to Marilyn Chin, as well as a critical book on the nuclear threat and American poetry. He has co-authored a guidebook to Ezra Pound’s Venice and a biography of Armenian poet Hmayeak Shems, has co-edited four books of poetry and criticism, and has worked as a collaborative translator from Serbian, Italian, Chinese, Armenian and French. His awards include fellowships from the NEA, the Fulbright Foundation, the Louisiana Division of the Arts, and the University of Minnesota. A Research Professor of English at University of New Orleans and Director of the Ezra Pound Center for Literature, Brunnenburg, Italy, he lives in New Orleans with his wife, poet Biljana Obradovic, and their son Petar.Read "Rapture" by John Gery.
Sep. 15, 2015. Marilyn Chin discusses "Hard Love Province" at the 2015 Library of Congress National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Speaker Biography: Chinese-American poet Marilyn Chin is a writer, activist, editor and professor of English. She has received numerous honors, including five Pushcart Prizes, the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award and various fellowships. Her work has been featured in "The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry" and other anthologies. She has published several volumes of poetry, including "Rhapsody in Plain Yellow," "The Phoenix Gone" and "Dwarf Bamboo." Her latest work, "Hard Love Province," won the 2015 Ainsfield-Wolf Prize for Poetry. Chin is currently the co-director of the MFA program at San Diego State University. For transcript, captions, and more information, visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=6933
The Poetry of America’s 2014 national series The Voice of Women in American Poetry celebrates an enormous literary heritage. Distinguished contemporary poets—both male and female—will gather in five cities around the country to pay tribute to the immense achievement of a wide range of poets, from Phyllis Wheatley and Anne Bradstreet to Adrienne Rich and Lucille Clifton. In Los Angeles, join poets Marilyn Chin on Ai, Toi Derricotte on Anne Sexton and Percival Everett on Gertrude Stein.
As part of the "Necessary Utterance: Poetry as Cultural Force" event commemorating Natasha Trethewey's historical year as Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry at the Library of Congress, poets Marilyn Chin, Brenda Shaughnessy, Patricia Smith, Brian Turner and Kevin Young read from their work. For captions, transcript, and more information visit http://www.loc.gov/today/cyberlc/feature_wdesc.php?rec=5942
Marilyn Chin reads some of her poetry, including BARBARIAN SWEET, which she says retains ancient Chinese forms in a recognizable Western format Series: "Artists on the Cutting Edge" [Humanities] [Show ID: 595]
Marilyn Chin reads some of her poetry, including BARBARIAN SWEET, which she says retains ancient Chinese forms in a recognizable Western format Series: "Artists on the Cutting Edge" [Humanities] [Show ID: 595]