by: Sam Rivas, Contributor & Guest Author
De-canon celebrates Asian American Pacific Islander writers, zooming in on Pacific Northwest published poetry. These collections share elements of identity—history, grief, and family.
Portuguese by Brandon Shimoda @brandon_shimoda (Octopus Books& Tin House Books) @octopusbookspoetry
“Every child I see I say to myself / is that how my child will look? I look/ For parents to extrapolate against, see only/ Myself on the opposite shore” (8, The Grave on the Wall)
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Proof of Stake an Elegy by Charles Valle @checking4charles (Fonograf) @fonografeditions
“I want to invent a new plasticity of language, / Of movement, of motions, of grief / And strike these words to widen the aperture / To blur the background, all that baggage/ In buttery bokeh, unrecognizable/Dark, more dark “ (59)
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Picasso’s Tears Poems 1978-2013 by Wong May (Octopus Books) @octopusbookspoetry
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Poem titled, “DARK TIMES: LU HSÜN (1881-1936)” by Wong May, page 29 (Wave Books)
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A Thousand Times you Lose your Treasure by Hoa Nguyen @hn2626 (Wave books)
Poem titled, “Tones in Vietnamese Language”
Photo: Hoa Nguyen’s mother was part of an all women motorcycle stunt group from Vinh Long. This is a photo of one of the women in the group.
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Photo collage in Hardly War by Don Mee Choi, “Hardly Opera” pg 54-55 (Wave Books)
Photo of drawing and poem in DMZ Colony by Don Mee Choi, “Orphan Nine” pg 71
