I get my news about the U.S. rather slowly. For example, I only just learned of the snowstorm in the Northeast. Much as I would like to gloat and taunt my NYC-dwelling friends about the fact that it never snows here in Chengdu, the reality of the situation is this: I am drinking my coffee hot, the down comforters are on the beds, I am currently wearing two wool sweaters, and although I have not yet put on any thermal underwear, that moment is approaching rapidly. All of this can mean but one thing–winter has arrived–and there is no emoji capable of accurately depicting my feelings on the subject. Continue reading
My Work
“America Used to be America to Me”: A Poem
I suppose this is my personal homage to Langston Hughes’s great poem, “Let America be America Again,” about which I’ve written here before. Perhaps it’s also my personal update to that poem, my own “creative misprision”–to borrow Harold Bloom’s term–through which I’m trying to say where I think we are and where I hope we’re going. Continue reading
Breaking “The Great Taboo”: A Translation of Li Bai’s 李白 “Drinking Alone Beneath the Moon 月下獨酌”
There is a tradition among English translators of Chinese poetry that all Chinese poems should be translated as unrhymed free-verse. This tradition goes back at least as far as Ezra Pound–whose “translations” bear little resemblance to their originals–and is very much alive and kicking. So much so that I am borrowing Nathan Sivin’s term, “The Great Taboo,” to describe it. Continue reading
The Land of Imaginary Things: A Sample Chapter
The Land of Imaginary Things is my young-adult fantasy novel. Elanor, twelve, has lost her father, and with him her first and favorite playmate and fellow lover of stories. Her chest is tight and her life is cold. One morning she wakes to find herself in the Land of Imaginary Things, the land where all the things humans imagine—talking animals, cursed forests, immortal librarians—are real and alive. Continue reading
“Yours”: A Poem of Devotion
This poem, which first appeared in the collection of poems I published here last year, was recently published in the Summer 2018 issue of Tokens. Since Tokens is not available online (and has a rather limited circulation!), I thought I’d post it here. Continue reading
The Man with the Beard
I saw a man with a beard on the subway today. You don’t often see beards like that. Continue reading
“Zora Neale Hurston on Racial Identity, Ninety Years Later” has been Published!
I’m pleased to announce that The Columbia Review has published my essay “Zora Neale Hurston on Being Black in America, Ninety Years Later” on their website (the title has been changed to the one you see in the title of this post). If you have a chance click over there and give them a visit. Thanks!
Poetry (6): A Gift of Poetry for the Bicentenary of Bahá’u’lláh’s Birth
October 22nd of this year marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Bahá’u’lláh, founder of the Bahá’í Faith and the most recent of God’s Messengers to humanity–whose number includes Christ, Muhammad, Buddha, Krishna, Moses, Zoroaster, and an unknown number of other Messengers whose names have been lost. Continue reading
Poetry (5) and Bicycling Chengdu (4)
Two of my recurring topics in one post–not to shabby! At any rate, I was on my bike again recently. The first line came to me as I set off, I finished the rest of it while waiting for a stoplight to change. I hope you enjoy it! Continue reading
Kangding Summer
The river’s roar is the subtle backdrop to everything in Kangding 康定. Five hundred—even a thousand—feet up the hillside it’s still there, echoing endlessly between the valley’s mountain walls. Continue reading
