The Next Big Thing (TNBT)

Thanks to poet and yogini Sara Nolan for tagging me.

What is/was the working title of the book(s)?

Aux Arcs.

Where did the idea come from for the book?

The idea for Aux Arcs crystallized in my mind as I was crossing the border from Arkansas into Missouri on my cross-country move back to Seattle, after three years living in isolation in small Southern towns throughout Texas and Arkansas. I had been working on a collection of poems during my time living in the South, but had not been able to see the larger structure of how to interweave the themes and works together into a sequence. As my husband and I passed beyond Fayetteville, I began to see signs for “Aux Arcs” which made me think of the Ozarks mountain range that I had never seen during our two years living in Central Ark. I began to think of Zen metaphors about mountains – how the mountain comes in and out of focus. The mountain vanishes entirely. And so does the hermit that lives on it. I had never felt at one with the South while living there, because of the nature of some of highly racialized experiences that I had while living in Conway and San Marcos. I did not allow myself to write about them, because I had to live within that reality from day-to-day. I had to have a good cover story and narrative to make sense of the strangeness that I had chosen. In leaving the South permanently, I became one with the metaphoric mountain and felt myself returning.

“Aux Arcs” is the old French term to communicate things “of and from Arkansas.” It also signifies a bend in the river. My time living in the Deep South was a significant detour from the life that I had begun to build in the Pacific Northwest. So the book is representative of a space or geography, and of an arc in my experiences which was rich and complex, confusing, difficult, full of strange discoveries, and ultimately liberating.

What genre does your book(s) fall under?

Aux Arcs, as it is currently being conceived and designed is a hybrid book. Primarily poetry (including some visual/concrete works and prose poems), the book will also include a significant selection of my photographic work throughout the last decade, with several images drawn from the South.

What actors would you choose to play the part of your characters in a movie rendition?

I would play myself. I’d ask friends Tom Gilroy or Randy Walker to direct.

What is a one sentence synopsis of your book?

Poetry is not an elevator speech. For a time, I talked about the book in terms of the project being about my experiences as an Asian-American woman living in the South. But this set up a certain expectation in readers about identity politics in the work that seemed to undermine the sublety and complexity of how the work operates together. Now, I am thinking along the lines of “The poet’s detour into the pequliar.”

How long did it take you to write the first draft of the manuscript?

I assembled the bulk of the poems over a three-year period. Once I saw the shape of the manuscript, I knocked it out in three months once I was back in the Pacific Northwest, writing about 20 new poems for the book.

Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I needed to write about the strange detour that my life took to get it out of my system and move on. I am done with the South and will never again live in Texas or anywhere within the Bible Belt/Stroke Belt. I had been exploring place-based writing during my time living in Arkansas, which included working with two geographers from the University of Central Arkansas on a mapping project that became an autocartography of my migration patterns and the influence that place had on my different projects. That mapping work helped me to breakthrough in my thinking about Aux Arcs, to arrive at a way of writing about the South that was true to my own experiences. I needed to finish the book, so that I could move on and apply these lessons to a book project that I am now working on about Taiwan.

What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

The themes in this book include marginality, animality, labor, visual art, geography, memory, and criminality. I think the photos will really lure readers who may be curious about how these two creative practices intersect in my process and approaches. This book is also biographical.

Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

The book will be published by the inimitable La Alameda Press.

I talk to a UT Dallas humanities student in the latest issue of Reunion which can be ordered here.

I am a 2013 grant recipient for Community Supported Arts.

New poems up at Buddhist Poetry Review.

2013 New Year's Resolutions:
- start bicycling
- obtain a scooter license and scooter
- drive in Seattle
- work on book project on Taiwan
- write and publish 1 or 2 personal essays
- learn 5-10 new recipes
- go swimming 2-3 times a week
- pay off remaining student loan debt
- take a well-deserved vacation

The Ghosts of Green Island

A friend of a friend, Mr. Tsun, works for the thermal electric plant on Green Island and grew up on Ludao. He offered to take us for a tour of local sites - the lighthouse, the prison, and other places of interest. I immediately asked where the dead bodies were buried - of the political prisoners. He drove us to the access road of Swallow's Cave and we hiked in.

Past windswept trees felled by typhoon, along a dirt path.

Until we arrived at a small cemetery on a grassy hillside being grazed by dozens of wild goats.

As I shot photo after photo using my Hasselblad, the camera shutter jammed. I am not a superstitious person but had to question reality at that moment. Mr. Tsun said that when he was growing up, no one dared visit these places. But from the looks of the trash and debris, it would seem that the graveyard is now more heavily trafficked.

In the distance, Mr. Tsun pointed to Sparrow's Cave. "That's where they used to burn the dead bodies." When we went back the next day, my dad and I walked towards the outskirts of the cave, but he refused to go into the grotto. Later, I read in a book published on Green Island's historic sites that no bodies were ever burned in Swallow's Cave. This story is told for the sake of tourism. But the cave is a shelter for thousands of sparrows.

More Green Island

My dad and I rented electric bikes to tour Ludao. They are a step up from manual bicycles, and not quite as souped up as scooters. But they get the job done on small hills, no pedaling required. On one afternoon, we set out together to see what we could.

We rode along the perimeter of the island, where we encountered a couple of diving platforms. Snorkelers walk out to the end of the platforms and jump into the water.

We visited Guanyin Cave. Legend goes that a lost seafarer off the coast of Green Island was guided safely inland thru a strange light. He followed the light to the cave where he encountered a stalactite that resembled the Goddess of Mercy, Guanyin. The townspeople erected a shrine around the mineral deposit and enshrouded it in red. Later the cave was opened to give access to visitors.

The island is a place of great breath-taking beauty - from Cow's Head Rock to the ocean and mountain landscapes, it's a place that I would gladly visit again.

Green Island (Ludao)

From Matsu, we returned to Taipei for a few days before departing for Green Island, also known as Ludao (Lyudao), also known formerly as Fire-Burning Island. Upon deboarding the ferry and entering into the town of Nanliao, one of the first things you are greeted by is this sight:

Green Island is a place that's been transformed into a tourist site, due to its unspoiled white sand beaches and coral reefs, a haven for scuba divers and snorkelers. In recent times, the island has begun to capitalize on its darker history - the heritage of the Ludao Lodge where political prisoners were sentenced to hard labor under Martial Law.

Ludao Lodge is no more. The island still maintains one high-security prison that houses Taiwanese gangsters, but as for the Lodge that housed enemies of the government, all that remains are crumbling buildings, a memorial museum, and preserved historic spaces.

The main building itself is a panopticon, extending out in four different wings.

The spaces are haunting and eerie. After 1/2 an hour or so of taking pictures, I felt a bit unnerved, particularly, because I was the only person in the cavernous building.

I was haunted by the rooms of solitary confinement. And in one wing even discovered some padded cells that were windowless. I could not bring myself to enter.

Many things went down on Green Island. There are differing accounts of how many died and how. But it was a site of hard labor, torture, execution. We noticed that townspeople gave differing accounts from former prison staff. The exhibitions pull from the journals and writings of past prisoners who illustrate the experience of prison life at the Ludao Lodge.

Re-education was a large part of the experience, as was hard labor - such as breaking up coral reefs, and farming.

As we left the exhibition hall, my father remembered a childhood friend who's father was imprisoned on Green Island for suspected political activities. My father was too young to understand, but knew that his friend traveled once a month to visit his father, taking a 3-hour ferry from Taitung to Green Island. He always tried to imagine what that journey was like, and what Green Island was like. Upon seeing and understanding, he remembered his friend and broke into tears. His friend's father was imprisoned for nearly a decade until Martial Law was lifted. At that point he was sent home. He sold his land, put his affairs in order, divided up his property amongst his sons and died a year later. In my father's retelling, there is a lesson about love for one's family - what keeps one going, even through the darkest of times and what happens when we decide to let go.

Matsu Part II

Matsu (Beigan) is a fairly sleepy island. I wanted to see the island before the erection of the casino that's been approved by the government to increase tourism. Walking around downtown, I snapped some photos of a temple close to our hotel.

Inside the temple, I discovered a number of lovely box-like tableaus in the shadows of the central deity shrine. I have no sense of what tales these tableaus were illustrating but was fascinated nonetheless.

Across the street from the small temple, I noticed a Christian presence.

On our last morning in Matsu, I convinced my father to hire a taxi to see some of the local sites that we'd scouted the previous day on the bus loop. We went to Qiozhi Fishing Village, but also to a place that wasn't on the bus route, but that my father had mentioned. My dad was reticent about going - he felt the $600 NT cab ride negotiated by the hotel was not reasonable and wanted to strike up his own deal. So he hired a taxi to take us to Qiaozhi and the Beigan Tunnel.

The Beigan Tunnel was nothing like I pictured. You have to scuttle down some slippery rocks on a mountainside to enter inside the cave structure. I was told I would have 5 minutes to take pictures, of what I though would just be the exterior. But suddenly, the taxi driver was joining us on our adventure. He had never entered inside the Tunnel and my dad's charm did its work.

In retrospect, I wish I'd shot video or recorded sound. The light in the tunnel was too dark to make decent fotos. The tunnel was created by soldiers stationed in Matsu who hammered away at the mountain to carve the space where secret fleets of boats could be stored, alongside rations and supplies delivered to the island that were stored for later dissemination. We made it pretty far into the tunnel before turning back, though I did not see the statues that are supposedly inside the mountain that serve as monuments. My dad had a feeling the tide was coming in, and as we left, the ocean waters washed over our shoes. As we exited, I noticed the high and low tide signs in Chinese. We had neglected to read them. My dad was pleased that the taxi driver only charged us $250 NT for his time and trouble.

Matsu Island

From Taipei, we flew to Matsu Island off the coast of China, where my father was stationed as a 24-year-old. He lived in the small fishing village of Houao, amidst stone houses and narrow alleyways...

In a house where no one else dared live. He lived in a haunted house that is now in ruin and disrepair. The locals have never torn down the structure or rebuilt it, because of their fear of ghosts and retaliation, so the structure remains as a relic of a former time.

My father seemed to be in some disbelief that the structure should remain. Upon entering the building which now has no roof, just trees overgrown into the space, he pointed to the back room where he once slept on a wooden board, and to the corner in the front room where a mortar shell fell through the roof.

We then hiked up a mountainside to see the military outpost where he was later stationed. Upon summitting the hill, I came upon a group of soldiers yelling and making rapid movements, as they practiced their military exercises. This cannon was briefly pointed towards me.

Dad was transferred from the village to the barracks on the mountain. He thinks it was because he appeared to be less than a model soldier, with his shirtsleeves rolled up. He also neglected to wear his cap. Not a shining example - I suspect that the transfer may have been a demotion, when considering the living quarters of those stationed on the mountain. No light. No windows. Just dismal jail-like cells.

Taipei

We went from Central Taiwan on to Taipei, the capital city where shops and eateries abound. We stayed at my cousin's apartment in the Xinyi District, a short distance from Taipei 101, once the world's tallest building, until the Arabs built something taller in Dubai.

Visiting Taipei means visiting the National Palace Museum. Visiting the National Palace Museum means two things - jade cabbage and fatty pork carvings.

This visit, I was delighted to discover a new favorite. A very special spoon holder for a soup ladle fashioned in the shape of a goose. Ceramic ladle is incised with Sanskrit.

We also spent some time at the 228 Museum - a memorial museum dedicated to preserving the history of Taiwan under Martial Law and an era of political upheaval that left an indelible mark upon my father's generation.

This display commemorates a small portion of the 20,000 people who were executed under the military regime.

While in Taipei, I also made a visit to Treasure Hill. The community once housed Kuo Min Tang soldiers who arrived in Taiwan with Chiang Kai Shek. Soldiers squatted in the land around the Gongguang MRT station and settled the area for decades. Several years ago, there was a push by the city to displace these now elderly residents from their substandard housing. The Taipei Artist Village intervened and worked with the city to preserve the village and now manage a few of the spaces within the community. Old grandpas can still be seen walking through the housing development, alongside tourists taking photos and designers and artists who office in spaces within the renovated village.

Earthquake ruins

My cousin took us to the earthquake sites that he was aware of. But there is also an earthquake museum on the site of a junior high school that my trusty Rough Guide referred us to. The school was built along the fault line, and as a result, the running track split and several buildings were left in ruin. Because the earthquake took place at nite, no one was killed in the disaster. The school was eventually converted into a museum that preserves the ruined structures, exhibiting exposed rebar and concrete to give the public a sense of the shoddy craftmanship and quality that went into the making of some of these buildings that ultimately caused their collapse.

Looking into crumbled classrooms, a viewer sees old AV equipment, fans and hardware, living spaces suddenly interrupted.

When I visited Taiwan in 2003, I also visited a ruined temple. The temple was flattened, kind of like a frosted cake that had collapsed.

It was cordoned off and had a giant censer/incense holder collapsed on its side.

The earth gods inside the temple were relocated to a structure across the street. Locals commented that the gods had not done their job in protecting the people over which they reign.

Now a new temple has been rebuilt to replace the old one. And they sit side by side.The gods have not been reinstalled inside the temple.

Taiwan 2012

From December 3-23, I visited Taiwan with my father to tour the places of his adolescence and young adulthood, and to view and explore sites of ruin and upheaval that were high on my list of things to see.

Our first stop was Nantou - my 1st uncle who is 87 years old lives in this area. Nantou is relatively close to the epicenter of the 9.21 (9/21 is the date, the magnitude was closer to a 7) earthquake that decimated much of Taiwan in 1999. My cousin took us to the epicenter to see the eruptions in the land and the buildings that have been preserved as a document of that disaster.

At the Ji Ji Memorial in Jiufenershan, a severely damaged house has been preserved.

Visitors to the house walk into the structure at a slant in order to maintain their balance. Shifts in the magnetic field of the house also make metal and coins stick to some of the interior walls of the structure.

Further up the mountain, ruptures in the earth, where rock was pushed out, are still visible. I took this photograph overlooking a red-roofed house that was tossed across the mountain. Where I stood taking the picture, was where the house used to be.

Upcoming

A couple of upcoming readings:

Feb. 26: Richard Hugo House, 7 pm - an event to celebrate the anniversary of White Pine Press

March 14: Ballard Public Library, 7 pm - the About Time Reading Series

Cabazon Dinos

Over the years, my husband has taken me to many places that were significant to his childhood - from the Crater of Diamonds State Park where Arkansans dig for diamonds to the Inner Space Caverns outside of Austin - I've had many a chance to experience bringing his memories to life. On a recent visit to California, I had a chance to take Kort to a place that was special to my early life - the Cabazon dinos outside of Palm Springs.

Used to be that there was just one dino, "Diney." He was created by a model-maker for Knott's Berry Farm who bought a roadside restaurant where he needed to attract more traffic and business. He decided to build a dinosaur.

A few years ago, the dinosaurs were sold to an entity that promotes Creationism. The Creationists believe that men and dinosaurs roamed the earth at the same time and co-existed. A sort of anti-evolutionary stance.

The new owners installed robotic dinos and also built a theme park that charges a modest admission. We could not resist the kitsch.

Bear’s Den

like Austin twenty years ago
weird, w/ the “cool kids”
cheap beer, dive bar, small-
town profs plus spouses

still seeking employment –
the Conway Twitties play
a goodbye show for
the departing adjunct

his partner gone already
to the Second City, he’s already
checked out, two academics
each divorced both confess

it’s awful in Arkansas
to be a single man – then
“I’m pretty sure Latino
women get me best” the fantasy

of a fall-back career or
being denied tenure so you can
go forward with living the rest
of your life past the acrylic yarn

bombs clinging to blighted trees
in Simon Park, each Fall, more
students stunned to find their
favorite pedagogues gone

Kumari

"Sometimes I don’t feel like going on my throne when mommy asks me. I’ve got to get up so early." - Sajani Sakya, The Kumari of Bhaktapur

Perhaps it was her third eye
opened inwards that aroused
Sajani Sakya to rebel against

divinity - sacked for venturing
beyond Nepali borders &
behaviors unbefitting to

a living goddess

even the hardest working
deities need a holiday – hers
a tour to Silver Springs

to screen a film about
her own existence, risking
reversion to common status

forestalling the mutation
at menarche when Kali leaves
the child body behind, her guardians

mean to purify her,
she elects for early retirement
at eleven years of age, passes

the entrance tests to middle school
where she sets her eyes on the path
of teacher-doctor-camerawoman

Inner Space

a guide aims her flashlight
at the borehole drilled
half a century before

the build of I-35, below
ground it’s twenty degrees cooler
than the blazing temps out there

the cavern where my Texan mate
takes me to find relief from heat, beneath
a canopy of pencil-thin soda straw stalactites

the Permian floodwater
maze that claimed the lives
of Ice Age species, mammoth

armadillo and sabre-toothed cat,
swamped in quicksand,
a pyramid of bat guano piled high

on the grotto floor, grows taller
with time, past the talus
cone of bone sink I spot

a crumbling tusk,
pass my tongue over a back
molar claimed by dental caries

capped one month ago
in gold, what relics what
remains hereafter

Inner Space

a guide aims her flashlight
at the borehole drilled
half a century before

the build of I-35, below
ground it’s twenty degrees cooler
than the blazing temps out there

the cavern where my Texan mate
takes me to find relief from heat, beneath
a canopy of soda straw stalactites

the Permian floodwater
maze that claimed the lives
of Ice Age species, mammoth

armadillo and sabre-toothed cat,
swamped in quicksand,
a pyramid of bat guano piled high

on the grotto floor, past the talus
cone of bone sink I spot
a crumbling tusk

wall murals of camel and horse
depict a different history
than the one I knew

growing up, Cabazon dinos
the novelty architectures of my youth
that call me home,

rising over desert hills,
the concrete Apatosaurus
reclaimed by Creationists

selling toy replicas their labels
warn, “The fossil record does
not support evolution."

Blotter

San Marcos PD send someone
out to follow up after I file the report,
the police dick visits Hillside Ranch

having already talked to the neighbors
across the breezeway about the email
I got at work – Say another word

about our flag and we’ll take you down.

Detective Duwayne Poorboy deduces
simple country boys getting their degrees from
Texas State couldn’t make up such a thing,

No matter how many white guys you fuck,
you’ll never be anything but a worthless gook.

a gut check tells him their mamas
taught ‘em right from wrong and for
the record, the confederate flag stands

for something else to people from these parts –
a source of regional pride he beams –
not unlike the hanging

of a soccer pennant for a favorite team,
or displaying a banner from China he says
scanning the living space for clues

to my background, but I was born here

Go back to where you came from!

when I tell my closest friend who
shuddered that time she climbed
the stairs to my walk-up,

she doesn’t hesitate to send
her cousins around – Black
law enforcement officers

from the Austin PD appear
to intimidate the antagonizers