can exist without a pas port or green card and labels him as what he is. remember the ones who tried to pass as something else? remember the [inaudible] of life. the [inaudible] of the nation of the [inaudible]. remember the guy from tijuana you met years ago and is proclaimed he was italian because he would and people believed him. as if being italian was a step up. you alexander have changed your entire people. you who dream of an american time will be relevant you can think in order to be an american writer you have to quit your brownness because the adjective will get in the way of the important noun. english language will impose the adjective before the noun and your face will be imposed before the actual meaning of your life. the other one is not the [inaudible] but the black parent. that one there is the yellow which he willo player. language makes sense [inaudible] language is never innocent. it is a familiar domaine of the ones who came out with it s loss and structure. this, alexander, is not your tongue. your tongue is muteulated, it s gone, rotten in your mouth along with the silence of the days where you became invisible you bad copy cat. despite the rage and the disappointment of your own kin. thank you. [applause] this is a scene from my novel [inaudible]. it seemed like a great opportunity to get to do this here. okay. what time is the first reader anyway? i didn t like bars this crowded. someone elbode me in the back. when i turned around i didn t know who the elbow belong said. relax. i didn t expect there to be this many people i thought they would be at the bar with the travel writers. i thought they the be with the hip sters i guess we are not hip sters we can t guess who they are into. we lessened the hipster intimidation factor and picked out the smart guy. this year we selected postmen pausal writers on the meaning of life. here i was, the city never fails to surprise me much the crowd was quieting. people were pointing toward the stage. i woman of 60 clamored on to it. she had silver hair and had a long velvet skirt. i m senora watson. there was applause. she lowered her head slightly to indicate her humility. i must confess i was surprised to be invited tonight. i m embarrassed to say i didn t know young people were drunkenly stumbling through the streets in the name of literature. there is a mag natizism we were tealing. we were in a bar. here is my flawed worthwhile attempt to approach the meaning of life. she read a first person account of a 23 year marriage. every word of every paragraph was tuned there was not a wrong note. it was so powerful imented to believe it was her marriage. that last paragraph contained the wedding vow when he swore he would not be afraid to let her chafrnl him much the crowd froze after she finished. then we exploded into applause. she stood in the spotlight with tears in her eyes. she s a retired psychotherapist. go to her. this was a scene of a romantic comedy. i had to catch her at the airport before she left me forever. she was stopped by audience member after audience member. iment to talk to her but what would i say? well, what are you trying to get from her. her question was koejent for someone who had polished off her third drink. i want to come out of retirement and i want her to help me. i don t think it s realistic. you keep thinking i need to find the restroom. i wasn t listening to the reader on stage. she was talking to 3-20 something women. she back and grabbing at my arm. we need to leave now. why? dustin is here and he is with someone and she s cute. did he see you? no. i can t talk to him i m a mess. are you sure he s really with her and they are not friends. she s hanging all over him and i didn t get to pee. let s go, then. we fought our way out the door. i cast the last look with senora it was just as well i hasn t found anything to say. i tried to calm aguilarissa, she schemed in terror. i can t go in there what if kevin is in there with his wife. what if i keep seeing them. she leaned on the door of the laundry mat. the asian woman looked at us and resumed folding. your ex s will not be there they are ill literate. i bet justin is engaged to that girl. she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket except for the cancer part. i m never getting married. she sank to the ground her back pressed against the glass. who says that s the meaning of life. it was a beautiful story but if you think about it it s hoeky. there is nothing hoeky about loving someone with your heart and having them love you the same way. that s how everyone doesn t love me. i didn t know what to say. there was nothing hoeky about a great love. yeary 3, 712 and 23 had been painful. some had been bory put it together and it was a life of great love. that was the only way it could be done. empty sidewalk was jammed with people. i held her as they streamed by. thank you. from the last 2 pages i wrote in my novel. after the events in entertainment room number 17. with the man who had been pretending to be her husband. the imposter didn t have his own name. he used ga as he wore ga s clothes and slept as her husband had on the couch. he drove with the high beams on and reunification boulevard. they were in a mustang and there were no other cars on the road. passing through the park they saw families in the dark steeling chest nuts from the trees. at dinner everyone called him commander ga even though he didn t look like commander ga. see knew that this man was not going to leave that her husband was not coming back be and from now on this man wouldn t be wished away. he would have to be dealt with as her husband had to be dealt with. they crossed the river the bridge lights showing the color of his bruises. they drove through the cemetery and the amusement park. she asked about the vehicle they were driving. he turned side ways in the road. the headlights was a man running from the zoo with an oan egg in his hand. do you feel the man hungry enough to steel or for the man who must hunt him down. is that the bird who suffers? thwhere did you get this ca? he didn t answer. you know it s a fake; right . this car, he said is revered in america. they are quite rare much i recognize this car it was a prop in one of my movies. this was the car he was escaping i saw kissed a trader in the back seat. how did you get this thing off the property lot? one switch in the road above the gardens and they were at her house. inside the children were asleep and he pulled a bottle of [inaudible] from the cool place under the sink he held it with a hand who s combukelled fanned yellow. you have chosen to become a man born to violence. he answered it was the commander who chose me. okay sun moon said i will turn down the sheets for us much the bed faced a balcony over looking the mountain. across the river was a glow much the 2 disrobed and entered where they lay awake waiting until 10 o clock. it s a common misconception that listening devices turn off in the power. with a can of peaches the kalt rad had given them. when the house and city below went dark moon spoke, here are the rules she said. children will reveal their names to you when they decide to do so. you will never use ta eshe k wo on them. you will never touch me. she said. from below they heard dogs bang in the zoo. wait, i take that back. you are allowed to touch me only if i touch you first. are there more rules? i m thinking she said. a quick blue flash filled the room and all was dark again. in prison he said, so many people through themselves at the electric fence they had to build another fence to keep them off of it. thank in conjunction with an an exhi bigz we had ann an exhi bigz we had ann anan tholl have the same title. it s my pleasure to introduce some of the writers from this book. i will give you an introduction of each of them as i introduce them for their speaking turn. first up we have debbie yee. debbie yee is an attorney and poet and supporter and organizer of the nonprofit asian american arts community. she s received her undergraduate and law degrees from uc berkeley and bolt. born and raised in sacramento, california. she continues to call northern california her home. and now lives in san francisco. so, with that i d like to introduce debbie yee as our first speaker. this is called jasper john s wagon. i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno, nevada. i don t know if it exists it s a really old postcard. harold s club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold s club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or the reverse w s topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it s own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it s no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t s and v s stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s s the determinant d s and resultant r s where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it s father s avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it s difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it s rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts. diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men s arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus s shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn s ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children s book ill administrator, curator and art s administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art s sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needs my arm for balance but avoids my touch. she counts the 10 sign posts. 5 stop signs and 2 mailboxes to our destination. she moves her lips as if remembering. before i came here, i had a name. 4 palm trees faced us when we landed loomed like guardians to pass the golden gate we tell them what they wanted to hear. on this island of desperate dreams we shed our skins and wore new once. we burned our parents name and let our past curl into smoke. no longer my father s daughter. no longer my husband s wife. only the sea gulls know who i really am. for months we were held in separate rooms the dampness went through the bunks and gnawed our bones the wales of ghosts kept us awake. 32 steps to my father s house. 4 windows facing north. 24 steps to my uncle s house, 2 doors facing south. i have 3 sisters, 2 brothers, 4 cousins on my father s side. now i store the memory in a drawer along with bitter herbs and rhinoceros horns we dine at restaurants on the better side of towns with pink table cloths and real flowers in the vases. we hardly go to china town. before i came here, i held his hand. now my heart is a chinese box of riddels, no one understands. i blew hot soup for her on foggy nights. she trims the ends of my thinning hair, still she can t forget that day she faced the interrogation officers and said she was my sister. i have not told anyone we move like shadows in a haze of secrets and lies. now stairs fascinate her. she knows the neighbor s house by heart. 21 steps to the door. 9 windows. 1-1/2 bathrooms. she counts every timely visit just to make sure. in case one day she has to know. before i came here, i had a name.
(applause). in conjunction with an an exhi bigz we had ann an exhi bigz we had ann anan tholl have the same title. it s my pleasure to introduce some of the writers from this book. i will give you an introduction of each of them as i introduce them for their speaking turn. first up we have debbie yee. debbie yee is an attorney and poet and supporter and organizer of the nonprofit asian american arts community. she s received her undergraduate and law degrees from uc berkeley and bolt. born and raised in sacramento, california. she continues to call northern california her home. and now lives in san francisco. so, with that i d like to introduce debbie yee as our first speaker. this is called jasper john s wagon. i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno, nevada. i don t know if it exists it s a really old postcard. harold s club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold s club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or the reverse w s topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it s own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it s no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t s and v s stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s s the determinant d s and resultant r s where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it s father s avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it s difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it s rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts. diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men s arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus s shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn s ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children s book ill administrator, curator and art s administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art s sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needs my arm for balance but avoids my touch. she counts the 10 sign posts. 5 stop signs and 2 mailboxes to our destination. she moves her lips as if remembering. before i came here, i had a name. 4 palm trees faced us when we landed loomed like guardians to pass the golden gate we tell them what they wanted to hear. on this island of desperate dreams we shed our skins and wore new once. we burned our parents name and let our past curl into smoke. no longer my father s daughter. no longer my husband s wife. only the sea gulls know who i really am. for months we were held in separate rooms the
alter of bee s wax candles and pepsi soda bottles. the inscents unravelling in a stream toward the water stain on the seceiling that looks like a map of latin america. this is not mexico city where indian families wrapped in newspapers huddel uppered the monument of the revolution. this is not where girls peddle chicklets on street corners no this is lamission. land of palm trees and skyscrapers where there is dollars enough for cell phones, sports cars and [inaudible] by the trunk full. where a suitcase of cocaine is as easy to buy as a broken stemmed rose from his white bucket. how much for that hand full of rose buds? for fingers go up. he makes change for a 20, returns clefrjed winched with b. you tip him a couple of dollars, so what. every love struck couple stairing into each other s eyes. every loner with a half empty beer even a waitress after a shift receives a visit from john nitto. he returns to the faces above the steaming plates before he s out into the neon lit street leaving behind a trail of rose petals bark as sacrificial hearts. thank you. [applause]. whenever i had writer s block i do research so i thought i would redo a section which started as writer s block and it took place in a library. i think all you need to know is my narrater is 19. the object of affection is 21. max s mother is a piannist and also polish. i saw little of rose after she moved her 2 valises into the nurses room on valentine s day of 1939. she did not allow a gust to drive her to the louve. she did not pause to look at me when i went to the gallery wearing a new shirt. nor did she take meals to my families. sometimes this was the best. at the dinner table my parents argued. father had been unsuccessful in keeping the newspapers from others. she practiced less and less. germany is not poland said my father. there are no contacts in berlin. he s a crazy man when i hear him on the radio. i can barely understand the german he s speaking he s an austrian, no, but his accent is fake. the geshel speaks perfectly. he must be the envy of singers every where. my father reached across his dinner plate and laid a hand on hers. she snatched it away. you know nothing. now you have butter on your sleeve. we neither mentioned our absent guest nor the chair awaiting her except on one occasion. father reported [inaudible] called a certain gog an a good deal. princess never spoke of money and bought paintings without inquiring about the price she left those details to her lawyer. snobby old cow is hamy father called her. i felt sorry for rose with father it was easy to make a mistake and not know it. you could sense it but not identify the crime much the second week of rose s apprenticeship the empty fourth chair disappeared. thank god you stop wearing that wretch ed clone. all my food tasted like must have beening. pity the polls they lost you. my mother said no they are trying to jerk germany off with one hand and the soviet unions with the other. weate in silence. the madam took hot long showers because i heard water rushing in the pipes and whether i turned mine on found it cold. a yellow square in the courtiard into the night. i watched for a shadow or shape. rigging a motorcycle mirror on a string and dangled it on a fishing lure and failed. i skulted in the hall way in the gallery and street hoping to catch her there. it only upset my father. we spoke german to each other as a nervous joke. i tinkered with the motorcycle mirror a started lifting bar bells. for a month mother talked of the germany refugee question and asked if it was better for jews to go to the philippines or the dominican republic. pius 11th was buried. the discover of king tut s tomb also died. the italians called a call to arms to war babies the first time around. when i visited the draft board i noticed my card was filed with a crease at it s corner. farther s laughter was louder than ever. clients who decided to buy had their paintings shipped to houses in the country. i noticed lucie hiding bags of sugar in the closet where i kept my tennis racket. to mother he repeated. don t worry, she replied, i do. i wonder if they rrmed they had a son at all. yet that month seemed to pass more slowly than others. rose s presence was fleeting. i passed by father s office as she sat by the type writer in a green sweater with a hole in the elbow. i found her in the bathroom once with a black tongue as a pen had burst when she licked it s anybody. i handed her a towel and said, just ruin the cloth. to the light in the courtyard i sang along with my new american record. there is a hungry yearning burning inside of me and i felt every word in the marrow of my bones. august said, i hate this cold porter so a played the album at a low volume and closed the window. when my curiousity about rose overwhelmed my common sense i investigated her living quarters i found her diaries and learned the secrets of her heart. searching in the spice cabinet lucie kept full of whisky i found a key. i planned my invasion for that afternoon. thank you very much. [applause] i wrote a new book i m working on. i m from mexico city and i write about mexican stuff. i fear i would write a book to deal with that and get it out of the way. this is part of this project. my main character is alexander. [inaudible] don t take it personal. my aim, i guess is to at the end of my novel that [inaudible] good mexican novelists. alexander looked at the mirror and saw a mexican stairing back at him. the bad mexican had paid alexander a visit much the conversation from last night s party brought him back in full force. why did he always have to open his big mouth. why tell people that don t care that he hated and despised? he actually might like the [inaudible] hated me english and spanish he could not understand how someone could say he was mexican having been born in the usa. he doesn t like going to mexican places. he does not like to discuss beer and shots of tequilla. he never listened to spanish radio stations. no more mexicans. who did not have a problem being objective with a mexican. [inaudible]. i should try to do something about this he thought this is not good. may be i should try, may be i should make an effort. may be i should drive to the mission and spend quality time with my own people. i m sure it would be simple. he doesn t have to be so hard. i am sure anyone who looks at me and talks to me will believe i m another south of the border specimen and never figure out i happen to be a self hating mexican. the self hating something made him think of the self hating jew. he thought of george constanza and woody allen. he thought of philip and alexander s father yelling and screaming telling his son he was the son of the family shames. you don t be deserved to be called a view. you, alexander are being embarrassed by the surface of the mirror. you don t deserve to be a mexican. nor the fact that mexicans are the hardest working people and came here to work and give their children a better future. there is no mexican who tried to justify with arguments like a fantasy to celebrate cinco de mayo. you, my friend are the self hating [inaudible] of all mexicans. you are nothing but a big master baeter. foolish man who hides from the rest of the world and sees his shame in order to dream a man can exist without a pas port or green card and labels him as what he is. remember the ones who tried to pass as something else? remember the [inaudible] of life. the [inaudible] of the nation of the [inaudible]. remember the guy from tijuana you met years ago and is proclaimed he was italian because he would and people believed him. as if being italian was a step up. you alexander have changed your entire people. you who dream of an american time will be relevant you can think in order to be an american writer you have to quit your brownness because the adjective will get in the way of the important noun. english language will impose the adjective before the noun and your face will be imposed before the actual meaning of your life. the other one is not the [inaudible] but the black parent. that one there is the yellow which he willo player. language makes sense [inaudible] language is never innocent. it is a familiar domaine of the ones who came out with it s loss and structure. this, alexander, is not your tongue. your tongue is muteulated, it s gone, rotten in your mouth along with the silence of the days where you became invisible you bad copy cat. despite the rage and the disappointment of your own kin. thank you. [applause] this is a scene from my novel [inaudible]. it seemed like a great opportunity to get to do this here. okay. what time is the first reader anyway? i didn t like bars this crowded. someone elbode me in the back. when i turned around i didn t know who the elbow belong said. relax. i didn t expect there to be this many people i thought they would be at the bar with the travel writers. i thought they the be with the hip sters i guess we are not hip sters we can t guess who they are into. we lessened the hipster intimidation factor and picked out the smart guy. this year we selected postmen pausal writers on the meaning of life. here i was, the city never fails to surprise me much the crowd was quieting. people were pointing toward the stage. i woman of 60 clamored on to it. she had silver hair and had a long velvet skirt. i m senora watson. there was applause. she lowered her head slightly to indicate her humility. i must confess i was surprised to be invited tonight. i m embarrassed to say i didn t know young people were drunkenly stumbling through the streets in the name of literature. there is a mag natizism we were tealing. we were in a bar. here is my flawed worthwhile attempt to approach the meaning of life. she read a first person account of a 23 year marriage. every word of every paragraph was tuned there was not a wrong note. it was so powerful imented to believe it was her marriage. that last paragraph contained the wedding vow when he swore he would not be afraid to let her chafrnl him much the crowd froze after she finished. then we exploded into applause. she stood in the spotlight with tears in her eyes. she s a retired psychotherapist. go to her. this was a scene of a romantic comedy. i had to catch her at the airport before she left me forever. she was stopped by audience member after audience member. iment to talk to her but what would i say? well, what are you trying to get from her. her question was koejent for someone who had polished off her third drink. i want to come out of retirement and i want her to help me. i don t think it s realistic. you keep thinking i need to find the restroom. i wasn t listening to the reader on stage. she was talking to 3-20 something women. she back and grabbing at my arm. we need to leave now. why? dustin is here and he is with someone and she s cute. did he see you? no. i can t talk to him i m a mess. are you sure he s really with her and they are not friends. she s hanging all over him and i didn t get to pee. let s go, then. we fought our way out the door. i cast the last look with senora it was just as well i hasn t found anything to say. i tried to calm aguilarissa, she schemed in terror. i can t go in there what if kevin is in there with his wife. what if i keep seeing them. she leaned on the door of the laundry mat. the asian woman looked at us and resumed folding. your ex s will not be there they are ill literate. i bet justin is engaged to that girl. she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket except for the cancer part. i m never getting married. she sank to the ground her back pressed against the glass. who says that s the meaning of life. it was a beautiful story but if you think about it it s hoeky. there is nothing hoeky about loving someone with your heart and having them love you the same way. that s how everyone doesn t love me. i didn t know what to say. there was nothing hoeky about a great love. yeary 3, 712 and 23 had been painful. some had been bory put it together and it was a life of great love. that was the only way it could be done. empty sidewalk was jammed with people. i held her as they streamed by. thank you. from the last 2 pages i wrote in my novel. after the events in entertainment room number 17. with the man who had been pretending to be her husband. the imposter didn t have his own name. he used ga as he wore ga s clothes and slept as her husband had on the couch. he drove with the high beams on and reunification boulevard. they were in a mustang and there were no other cars on the road. passing through the park they saw families in the dark steeling chest nuts from the trees. at dinner everyone called him commander ga even though he didn t look like commander ga. see knew that this man was not going to leave that her husband was not coming back be and from now on this man wouldn t be wished away. he would have to be dealt with as her husband had to be dealt with. they crossed the river the bridge lights showing the color of his bruises. they drove through the cemetery and the amusement park. she asked about the vehicle they were driving. he turned side ways in the road. the headlights was a man running from the zoo with an oan egg in his hand. do you feel the man hungry enough to steel or for the man who must hunt him down. is that the bird who suffers? thwhere did you get this ca? he didn t answer. you know it s a fake; right . this car, he said is revered in america. they are quite rare much i recognize this car it was a prop in one of my movies. this was the car he was escaping i saw kissed a trader in the back seat. how did you get this thing off the property lot? one switch in the road above the gardens and they were at her house. inside the children were asleep and he pulled a bottle of [inaudible] from the cool place under the sink he held it with a hand who s combukelled fanned yellow. you have chosen to become a man born to violence. he answered it was the commander who chose me. okay sun moon said i will turn down the sheets for us much the bed faced a balcony over looking the mountain. across the river was a glow much the 2 disrobed and entered where they lay awake waiting until 10 o clock. it s a common misconception that listening devices turn off in the power. with a can of peaches the kalt rad had given them. when the house and city below went dark moon spoke, here are the rules she said. children will reveal their names to you when they decide to do so. you will never use ta eshe k wo on them. you will never touch me. she said. from below they heard dogs bang in the zoo. wait, i take that back. you are allowed to touch me only if i touch you first. are there more rules? i m thinking she said. a quick blue flash filled the room and all was dark again. in prison he said, so many people through themselves at the electric fence they had to build another fence to keep them off of it. thank in conjunction with an an exhi bigz we had ann an exhi bigz we had ann anan tholl have the same title. it s my pleasure to introduce some of the writers from this book. i will give you an introduction of each of them as i introduce them for their speaking turn. first up we have debbie yee. debbie yee is an attorney and poet and supporter and organizer of the nonprofit asian american arts community. she s received her undergraduate and law degrees from uc berkeley and bolt. born and raised in sacramento, california. she continues to call northern california her home. and now lives in san francisco. so, with that i d like to introduce debbie yee as our first speaker. this is called jasper john s wagon. i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno,
this is called jasper john s wagon. i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno, nevada. i don t know if it exists it s a really old postcard. harold s club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold s club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or the reverse w s topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it s own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it s no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t s and v s stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s s the determinant d s and resultant r s where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it s father s avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it s difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it s rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts. diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men s arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus s shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn s ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children s book ill administrator, curator and art s administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art s sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needs my arm for balance but avoids my touch. she counts the 10 sign posts. 5 stop signs and 2 mailboxes to our destination. she moves her lips as if remembering. before i came here, i had a name. 4 palm trees faced us when we landed loomed like guardians to pass the golden gate we tell them what they wanted to hear. on this island of desperate dreams we shed our skins and wore new once. we burned our parents name and let our past curl into smoke. no longer my father s daughter. no longer my husband s wife. only the sea gulls know who i really am. for months we were held in separate rooms the dampness went through the bunks and gnawed our bones the wales of ghosts kept us awake. 32 steps to my father s house. 4 windows facing north. 24 steps to my uncle s house, 2 doors facing south. i have 3 sisters, 2 brothers, 4 cousins on my father s side. now i store the memory in a drawer along with bitter herbs and rhinoceros horns we dine at restaurants on the better side of towns with pink table cloths and real flowers in the vases. we hardly go to china town. before i came here, i held his hand. now my heart is a chinese box of riddels, no one understands. i blew hot soup for her on foggy nights. she trims the ends of my thinning hair, still she can t forget that day she faced the interrogation officers and said she was my sister. i have not told anyone we move like shadows in a haze of secrets and lies. now stairs fascinate her. she knows the neighbor s house by heart. 21 steps to the door. 9 windows. 1-1/2 bathrooms. she counts every timely visit just to make sure. in case one day she has to know. before i came here, i had a name. ships of wind. softly size the swaying trees in the secret place stilled by time. we toil between the deep brown earth crumbs past frommant toant in orderly procession surrounded by crushed new born grass and flattened flowers. many of us have died here. who s secret [inaudible] we do not know. nor the shift of wind the sudden wake that blocked the sun changes the course and brought with it the endless nights. we enl know the passing of formless clouds o pass the porch forced to forge a new since the coming of the black rain. number 2. there secrets here not ever known. we only carry the sudden weight of memories. not at hair pins, green tea, rice balls wrapped in silken cloth. melted crayons, moth and marbles. flightless wings in a brown bag. they are safe inside us. neither shift of wind nor sun s cruel wrath can force us from our charge into the endless night we stand our ground monolithic protectors of the broken spirit. 3. there was a place sacred beaconed by time. i remember. the new born grass trampled beneath the earth. no one else should die here. there was a flash, no, 2 secrets locked in a fire ball. the shift of wind the sudden weight of blue heat formless days worn past, changed since the coming of endless night. and my last poem speaks to world events. and now i m also thinking about the atrocities in berma. called the world i leave you. once there were 2 towers then there were none. i searched among the rubble for bones of men. what kind of world i leave you, what s human left of race? what more can i give you to resurrect your faith? smiles, i give and laughter like rain, flakes of snow that gently splay against the window pain. light transformed to rainbow, sweat from a dancer s brow. giggles of rivers running down mountains, flowers unfolding to face the sky. pain from sclap nal s path. blood from solders punctured hearts still borns pushed from aching wombs this belongs to you. dirt and miracles reborn. sweetness made sweeter by bitter sun and shadow forged as one. once there were 2 towers then there were none. between the once and the then lay all the hopes and fears of men. this is the world i leave you. ripe and full as a mother s breast. a baby s licking tongue grabbing hand and glistened eyes. thank you. [applause]. our next reader is rashne. lived studies and work indeed india, pakistan, lebanon, the united states and mexico. she is the editor of living in america. poetry and fiction by south asian american writers. encounter people of asian decent in the americas her novel, braided tongue was published in 2003. i introduce rashne. i m reading from a selection from a longer narrative. memory is no longer confused. it has a home land. from a farm by the late ali. sometimes the circle breaks and the woman meets the child. face-to-face. each one seeing for the first time her strength in the other. a poem by jenny. [inaudible]. after more than a year of e mails and phone conversations, amy,ling and i met at the university of wisconsin in madison. it was sometime during the mid 1980. calcutta was very hot, said amy. i wondered how our conversation about asian american literature veered to calcutta? calcutta was very hot but i got my first doll there. we spent some time in calcutta when we fled to the united states. the doll didn t look like me blond hair and blue ice bought from calcutta. she comforted me when i remember the sounds of the japanese bombs that forced us to leave our home. did you have a dog? an indian doll to comfort you when you were a child? i told amy about my doll named champy and my oldest paternal uncle who resembled chinese ancestors. my uncle was an astounding musician played the violin and k helo. i would pick up shanty s head and place her ears on the door because her ears were smaller than my ears. i wanted her to listen carefully to the wonderful sound. i may have know in the way children know but my uncle s music would disappear from my life far too soon. he died when he was 40 years old. i tried to tell amy how my grand mother asked everyone why no one could bring her oldest son back to life even after we made great progress in medical science. but in the end, broke my grand mother s heart was her 2 daughters could not come for their brother s funeral. when it explained to her that my aunts who lived in india and pack tan were considered enemy aliens we looked at us as we were inmates. we are brothers and sisters all of them are my children and went to grieve in the privacy of her prayers. we were quiet for sometime, both of us try to break away from the sounds of bombs and the sounds of grieve that accompany the tearing apart of people. 1 from the other. amy broke our silence. what do you mean pieces of your doll. i had 3 dolls all 3 were shanty. all 3 dolls were made of brittle plastic like material we called cutcha caw. they were hollow the different parts of their bodies were hooked with rubber bands. whatever held those 3 parts together they always broke within a few weeks and the dolls continued to exist in their separate components. i suspect my male cousin was the deconductor of the dolls. the grownups promised to reconstruct them but didn t have the time to follow up on their promises or forgot i was carrying around parts of dolls. except one aunt. she screamed every time she saw me carrying the 3 sets of legs and arms and 3 heads 234 thericcety carriage i pushed around. to assure my aunt the dolls were doing well. i would reassemble them mixing and matching the different parts of the dolls. may be it was a child s way of remembering the acts and the passion of iceis in search of her fragmented husband and the passion of [inaudible] tearing apart and putting together her colonizing bright sister. i still love dolls i collect them. what about you asked amy. she was disapointed when i told her that i hadn t cared from dolls since i was in my early teens. in the late 1990 s a friend wanted to give me a custom made doll. i requested a chinese young girl doll. and with my friend s permission i gaveamy the doll. the last time i saw the doll was in a collection of dolls aranged with great care in the house by the lake in madison where amy s memorial was held in 1999. last year, 7 years after amy s death i saw an old woman selling dolls right in front of the young federalist blocking the entrance to the [inaudible] and the conflict torn town. in 2006. and i thought of amy. and her passion for justice. and her love of dolls. later that evening, i thought of amy again. i found my friend shanty at the dining room table watching the television news about iraq. she was touching one of the most grotesque doll i had seen much the doll is 10 inches tall and look as if she was dying offan rexia. she was in a long gown, of course, blontd hair and green ice. if you can mag manual a bizarre version of a barbie that doll was it. returned from the 15th birthday celebration of friends of the family and the doll was part of the souvenir package given to all the female guests. everyone was given that doll. i was about to make a joke about that doll when i realized that 53 year old shanty was holding on to that doll as if it was a talisman. she turned to the television and said, i hope i never have to eat squirrel meat again. [inaudible] shanta was born in the mountains and grew up as the poorest of poor. when she was 5 years old her father died and her uncle gave her to a family that owned a small ranch and now owns a [inaudible]. i was in surprise that one time she had eaten squirrel meat but i wonder what brought up the squirrel meat that evening. shanta rocked the doll and told me when she was 4 or younger she found out there were dolls in the world. apparently her father told her about some of the girls in the city had little make believe babies. shanta wanted a doll. her parents laughed and shook their head. her favorite brother went to the mountains, caught the biggest squirrel he could find. kill today, cleaned out the meat, stuffed the clean squirrel with dry grass and presented the squirrel to shanta as her make believe baby. shanta loved her brother s gift but could never eat squirrel meat. the sound of loud bombs went off. we both jumped. last winter when we heard loud noises we wondered if they were bombs or fire works set off for a celebration or if they were professional or homemade rockets being exchanged with demonstrators and the federalists. shanta put her doll against her shoulder and patted the doll s back in the universal gesture of burping the baby. her last words to me last night were; does anyone know how many babies and children have been killed in iraq? how many babies and children are being killed or thrown out of their homes all over the world. why does everyone want to
relax. i didn t expect there to be this many people i thought they would be at the bar with the travel writers. i thought they the be with the hip sters i guess we are not hip sters we can t guess who they are into. we lessened the hipster intimidation factor and picked out the smart guy. this year we selected postmen pausal writers on the meaning of life. here i was, the city never fails to surprise me much the crowd was quieting. people were pointing toward the stage. i woman of 60 clamored on to it. she had silver hair and had a long velvet skirt. i m senora watson. there was applause. she lowered her head slightly to indicate her humility. i must confess i was surprised to be invited tonight. i m embarrassed to say i didn t know young people were drunkenly stumbling through the streets in the name of literature. there is a mag natizism we were tealing. we were in a bar. here is my flawed worthwhile attempt to approach the meaning of life. she read a first person account of a 23 year marriage. every word of every paragraph was tuned there was not a wrong note. it was so powerful imented to believe it was her marriage. that last paragraph contained the wedding vow when he swore he would not be afraid to let her chafrnl him much the crowd froze after she finished. then we exploded into applause. she stood in the spotlight with tears in her eyes. she s a retired psychotherapist. go to her. this was a scene of a romantic comedy. i had to catch her at the airport before she left me forever. she was stopped by audience member after audience member. iment to talk to her but what would i say? well, what are you trying to get from her. her question was koejent for someone who had polished off her third drink. i want to come out of retirement and i want her to help me. i don t think it s realistic. you keep thinking i need to find the restroom. i wasn t listening to the reader on stage. she was talking to 3-20 something women. she back and grabbing at my arm. we need to leave now. why? dustin is here and he is with someone and she s cute. did he see you? no. i can t talk to him i m a mess. are you sure he s really with her and they are not friends. she s hanging all over him and i didn t get to pee. let s go, then. we fought our way out the door. i cast the last look with senora it was just as well i hasn t found anything to say. i tried to calm aguilarissa, she schemed in terror. i can t go in there what if kevin is in there with his wife. what if i keep seeing them. she leaned on the door of the laundry mat. the asian woman looked at us and resumed folding. your ex s will not be there they are ill literate. i bet justin is engaged to that girl. she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket except for the cancer part. i m never getting married. she sank to the ground her back pressed against the glass. who says that s the meaning of life. it was a beautiful story but if you think about it it s hoeky. there is nothing hoeky about loving someone with your heart and having them love you the same way. that s how everyone doesn t love me. i didn t know what to say. there was nothing hoeky about a great love. yeary 3, 712 and 23 had been painful. some had been bory put it together and it was a life of great love. that was the only way it could be done. empty sidewalk was jammed with people. i held her as they streamed by. thank you. from the last 2 pages i wrote in my novel. after the events in entertainment room number 17. with the man who had been pretending to be her husband. the imposter didn t have his own name. he used ga as he wore ga s clothes and slept as her husband had on the couch. he drove with the high beams on and reunification boulevard. they were in a mustang and there were no other cars on the road. passing through the park they saw families in the dark steeling chest nuts from the trees. at dinner everyone called him commander ga even though he didn t look like commander ga. see knew that this man was not going to leave that her husband was not coming back be and from now on this man wouldn t be wished away. he would have to be dealt with as her husband had to be dealt with. they crossed the river the bridge lights showing the color of his bruises. they drove through the cemetery and the amusement park. she asked about the vehicle they were driving. he turned side ways in the road. the headlights was a man running from the zoo with an oan egg in his hand. do you feel the man hungry enough to steel or for the man who must hunt him down. is that the bird who suffers? thwhere did you get this ca? he didn t answer. you know it s a fake; right . this car, he said is revered in america. they are quite rare much i recognize this car it was a prop in one of my movies. this was the car he was escaping i saw kissed a trader in the back seat. how did you get this thing off the property lot? one switch in the road above the gardens and they were at her house. inside the children were asleep and he pulled a bottle of [inaudible] from the cool place under the sink he held it with a hand who s combukelled fanned yellow. you have chosen to become a man born to violence. he answered it was the commander who chose me. okay sun moon said i will turn down the sheets for us much the bed faced a balcony over looking the mountain. across the river was a glow much the 2 disrobed and entered where they lay awake waiting until 10 o clock. it s a common misconception that listening devices turn off in the power. with a can of peaches the kalt rad had given them. when the house and city below went dark moon spoke, here are the rules she said. children will reveal their names to you when they decide to do so. you will never use ta eshe k wo on them. you will never touch me. she said. from below they heard dogs bang in the zoo. wait, i take that back. you are allowed to touch me only if i touch you first. are there more rules? i m thinking she said. a quick blue flash filled the room and all was dark again. in prison he said, so many people through themselves at the electric fence they had to build another fence to keep them off of it. thank in conjunction with an an exhi bigz we had ann an exhi bigz we had ann anan tholl have the same title. it s my pleasure to introduce some of the writers from this book. i will give you an introduction of each of them as i introduce them for their speaking turn. first up we have debbie yee. debbie yee is an attorney and poet and supporter and organizer of the nonprofit asian american arts community. she s received her undergraduate and law degrees from uc berkeley and bolt. born and raised in sacramento, california. she continues to call northern california her home. and now lives in san francisco. so, with that i d like to introduce debbie yee as our first speaker. this is called jasper john s wagon. i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno, nevada. i don t know if it exists it s a really old postcard. harold s club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold s club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or the reverse w s topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it s own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it s no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t s and v s stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s s the determinant d s and resultant r s where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it s father s avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it s difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it s rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts. diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men s arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus s shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn s ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children s book ill administrator, curator and art s administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art s sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needs my arm for balance but avoids my touch. she counts the 10 sign posts. 5 stop signs and 2 mailboxes to our destination. she moves her lips as if remembering. before i came here, i had a name. 4 palm trees faced us when we landed loomed like guardians to pass the golden gate we tell them what they wanted to hear. on this island of desperate dreams we shed our skins and wore new once. we burned our parents name and let our past curl into smoke. no longer my father s daughter. no longer my husband s wife. only the sea gulls know who i really am. for months we were held in separate rooms the dampness went through the bunks and gnawed our bones the wales of ghosts kept us awake. 32 steps to my father s house. 4 windows facing north. 24 steps to my uncle s house, 2 doors facing south. i have 3 sisters, 2 brothers, 4 cousins on my father s side. now i store the memory in a drawer along with bitter herbs and rhinoceros horns we dine at restaurants on the better side of towns with pink table cloths and real flowers in the vases. we hardly go to china town. before i came here, i held his hand. now my heart is a chinese box of riddels, no one understands. i blew hot soup for her on foggy nights. she trims the ends of my thinning hair, still she can t forget that day she faced the interrogation officers and said she was my sister. i have not told anyone we move like shadows in a haze of secrets and lies. now stairs fascinate her. she knows the neighbor s house by heart. 21 steps to the door. 9 windows. 1-1/2 bathrooms. she counts every timely visit just to make sure. in case one day she has to know. before i came here, i had a name. ships of wind. softly size the swaying trees in the secret place stilled by time. we toil between the deep brown earth crumbs past frommant toant in orderly procession surrounded by crushed new born grass and flattened flowers. many of us have died here. who s secret [inaudible] we do not know. nor the shift of wind the sudden wake that blocked the sun changes the course and brought with it the endless nights. we enl know the passing of formless clouds o pass the porch forced to forge a new since the coming of the black rain. number 2. there secrets here not ever known. we only carry the sudden weight of memories. not at hair pins, green tea, rice balls wrapped in silken cloth. melted crayons, moth and marbles. flightless wings in a brown bag. they are safe inside us. neither shift of wind nor sun s cruel wrath can force us from our charge into the endless night we stand our ground monolithic protectors of the broken spirit. 3. there was a place sacred beaconed by time. i remember. the new born grass trampled beneath the earth. no one else should die here. there was a flash, no, 2 secrets locked in a fire ball. the shift of wind the sudden weight of blue heat formless days worn past, changed since the coming of endless night. and my last poem
exhi bigz we had ann an exhi bigz we had ann anan tholl have the same title. it s my pleasure to introduce some of the writers from this book. i will give you an introduction of each of them as i introduce them for their speaking turn. first up we have debbie yee. debbie yee is an attorney and poet and supporter and organizer of the nonprofit asian american arts community. she s received her undergraduate and law degrees from uc berkeley and bolt. born and raised in sacramento, california. she continues to call northern california her home. and now lives in san francisco. so, with that i d like to introduce debbie yee as our first speaker. this is called jasper john s wagon. i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno, nevada. i don t know if it exists it s a really old postcard. harold s club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold s club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or the reverse w s topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it s own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it s no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t s and v s stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s s the determinant d s and resultant r s where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it s father s avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it s difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it s rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts. diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men s arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus s shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn s ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children s book ill administrator, curator and art s administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art s sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needs my arm for balance but avoids my touch. she counts the 10 sign posts. 5 stop signs and 2 mailboxes to our destination. she moves her lips as if remembering. before i came here, i had a name. 4 palm trees faced us when we landed loomed like guardians to pass the golden gate we tell them what they wanted to hear. on this island of desperate dreams we shed our skins and wore new once. we burned our parents name and let our past curl into smoke. no longer my father s daughter. no longer my husband s wife. only the sea gulls know who i really am. for months we were held in separate rooms the dampness went through the bunks and gnawed our bones the wales of ghosts kept us awake. 32 steps to my father s house. 4 windows facing north. 24 steps to my uncle s house, 2 doors facing south. i have 3 sisters, 2 brothers, 4 cousins on my father s side. now i store the memory in a drawer along with bitter herbs and rhinoceros horns we dine at restaurants on the better side of towns with pink table cloths and real flowers in the vases. we hardly go to china town. before i came here, i held his hand. now my heart is a chinese box of riddels, no one understands. i blew hot soup for her on foggy nights. she trims the ends of my thinning hair, still she can t forget that day she faced the interrogation officers and said she was my sister. i have not told anyone we move like shadows in a haze of secrets and lies. now stairs fascinate her. she knows the neighbor s house by heart. 21 steps to the door. 9 windows. 1-1/2 bathrooms. she counts every timely visit just to make sure. in case one day she has to know. before i came here, i had a name. ships of wind. softly size the swaying trees in the secret place stilled by time. we toil between the deep brown earth crumbs past frommant toant in orderly procession surrounded by crushed new born grass and flattened flowers. many of us have died here. who s secret [inaudible] we do not know. nor the shift of wind the sudden wake that blocked the sun changes the course and brought with it the endless nights. we enl know the passing of formless clouds o pass the porch forced to forge a new since the coming of the black rain. number 2. there secrets here not ever known. we only carry the sudden weight of memories. not at hair pins, green tea, rice balls wrapped in silken cloth. melted crayons, moth and marbles. flightless wings in a brown bag. they are safe inside us. neither shift of wind nor sun s cruel wrath can force us from our charge into the endless night we stand our ground monolithic protectors of the broken spirit. 3. there was a place sacred beaconed by time. i remember. the new born grass trampled beneath the earth. no one else should die here. there was a flash, no, 2 secrets locked in a fire ball. the shift of wind the sudden weight of blue heat formless days worn past, changed since the coming of endless night. and my last poem speaks to world events. and now i m also thinking about the atrocities in berma. called the world i leave you. once there were 2 towers then there were none. i searched among the rubble for bones of men. what kind of world i leave you, what s human left of race? what more can i give you to resurrect your faith? smiles, i give and laughter like rain, flakes of snow that gently splay against the window pain. light transformed to rainbow, sweat from a dancer s brow. giggles of rivers running down mountains, flowers unfolding to face the sky. pain from sclap nal s path. blood from solders punctured hearts still borns pushed from aching wombs this belongs to you. dirt and miracles reborn. sweetness made sweeter by bitter sun and shadow forged as one. once there were 2 towers then there were none. between the once and the then lay all the hopes and fears of men. this is the world i leave you. ripe and full as a mother s breast. a baby s licking tongue grabbing hand and glistened eyes. thank you. [applause]. our next reader is rashne. lived studies and work indeed india, pakistan, lebanon, the united states and mexico. she is the editor of living in america. poetry and fiction by south asian american writers. encounter people of asian decent in the americas her novel, braided tongue was published in 2003. i introduce rashne. i m reading from a selection from a longer narrative. memory is no longer confused. it has a home land. from a farm by the late ali. sometimes the circle breaks and the woman meets the child. face-to-face. each one seeing for the first time her strength in the other. a poem by jenny. [inaudible]. after more than a year of e mails and phone conversations, amy,ling and i met at the university of wisconsin in madison. it was sometime during the mid 1980. calcutta was very hot, said amy. i wondered how our conversation about asian american literature veered to calcutta? calcutta was very hot but i got my first doll there. we spent some time in calcutta when we fled to the united states. the doll didn t look like me blond hair and blue ice bought from calcutta. she comforted me when i remember the sounds of the japanese bombs that forced us to leave our home. did you have a dog? an indian doll to comfort you when you were a child? i told amy about my doll named champy and my oldest paternal uncle who resembled chinese ancestors. my uncle was an astounding musician played the violin and k helo. i would pick up shanty s head and place her ears on the door because her ears were smaller than my ears. i wanted her to listen carefully to the wonderful sound. i may have know in the way children know but my uncle s music would disappear from my life far too soon. he died when he was 40 years old. i tried to tell amy how my grand mother asked everyone why no one could bring her oldest son back to life even after we made great progress in medical science. but in the end, broke my grand mother s heart was her 2 daughters could not come for their brother s funeral. when it explained to her that my aunts who lived in india and pack tan were considered enemy aliens we looked at us as we were inmates. we are brothers and sisters all of them are my children and went to grieve in the privacy of her prayers. we were quiet for sometime, both of us try to break away from the sounds of bombs and the sounds of grieve that accompany the tearing apart of people. 1 from the other. amy broke our silence. what do you mean pieces of your doll. i had 3 dolls all 3 were shanty. all 3 dolls were made of brittle plastic like material we called cutcha caw. they were hollow the different parts of their bodies were hooked with rubber bands. whatever held those 3 parts together they always broke within a few weeks and the dolls continued to exist in their separate components. i suspect my male cousin was the deconductor of the dolls. the grownups promised to reconstruct them but didn t have the time to follow up on their promises or forgot i was carrying around parts of dolls. except one aunt. she screamed every time she saw me carrying the 3 sets of legs and arms and 3 heads 234 thericcety carriage i pushed around. to assure my aunt the dolls were doing well. i would reassemble them mixing and matching the different parts of the dolls. may be it was a child s way of remembering the acts and the passion of iceis in search of her fragmented husband and the passion of [inaudible] tearing apart and putting together her colonizing bright sister. i still love dolls i collect them. what about you asked amy. she was disapointed when i told her that i hadn t cared from dolls since i was in my early teens. in the late 1990 s a friend wanted to give me a custom made doll. i requested a chinese young girl doll. and with my friend s permission i gaveamy the doll. the last time i saw the doll was in a collection of dolls aranged with great care in the house by the lake in madison where amy s memorial was held in 1999. last year, 7 years after amy s death i saw an old woman selling dolls right in front of the young federalist blocking the entrance to the [inaudible] and the conflict torn town. in 2006. and i thought of amy. and her passion for justice. and her love of dolls. later that evening, i thought of amy again. i found my friend shanty at the dining room table watching the television news about iraq. she was touching one of the most grotesque doll i had seen much the doll is 10 inches tall and look as if she was dying offan rexia. she was in a long gown, of course, blontd hair and green ice. if you can mag manual a bizarre version of a barbie that doll was it. returned from the 15th birthday celebration of friends of the family and the doll was part of the souvenir package given to all the female guests. everyone was given that doll. i was about to make a joke about that doll when i realized that 53 year old shanty was holding on to that doll as if it was a talisman. she turned to the television and said, i hope i never have to eat squirrel meat again. [inaudible] shanta was born in the mountains and grew up as the poorest of poor. when she was 5 years old her father died and her uncle gave her to a family that owned a small ranch and now owns a [inaudible]. i was in surprise that one time she had eaten squirrel meat but i wonder what brought up the squirrel meat that evening. shanta rocked the doll and told me when she was 4 or younger she found out there were dolls in the world. apparently her father told her about some of the girls in the city had little make believe babies. shanta wanted a doll. her parents laughed and shook their head. her favorite brother went to the mountains, caught the biggest squirrel he could find. kill today, cleaned out the meat, stuffed the clean squirrel with dry grass and presented the squirrel to shanta as her make believe baby.
you alexander have changed your entire people. you who dream of an american time will be relevant you can think in order to be an american writer you have to quit your brownness because the adjective will get in the way of the important noun. english language will impose the adjective before the noun and your face will be imposed before the actual meaning of your life. the other one is not the [inaudible] but the black parent. that one there is the yellow which he willo player. language makes sense [inaudible] language is never innocent. it is a familiar domaine of the ones who came out with it s loss and structure. this, alexander, is not your tongue. your tongue is muteulated, it s gone, rotten in your mouth along with the silence of the days where you became invisible you bad copy cat. despite the rage and the disappointment of your own kin. thank you. [applause] this is a scene from my novel [inaudible]. it seemed like a great opportunity to get to do this here. okay. what time is the first reader anyway? i didn t like bars this crowded. someone elbode me in the back. when i turned around i didn t know who the elbow belong said. relax. i didn t expect there to be this many people i thought they would be at the bar with the travel writers. i thought they the be with the hip sters i guess we are not hip sters we can t guess who they are into. we lessened the hipster intimidation factor and picked out the smart guy. this year we selected postmen pausal writers on the meaning of life. here i was, the city never fails to surprise me much the crowd was quieting. people were pointing toward the stage. i woman of 60 clamored on to it. she had silver hair and had a long velvet skirt. i m senora watson. there was applause. she lowered her head slightly to indicate her humility. i must confess i was surprised to be invited tonight. i m embarrassed to say i didn t know young people were drunkenly stumbling through the streets in the name of literature. there is a mag natizism we were tealing. we were in a bar. here is my flawed worthwhile attempt to approach the meaning of life. she read a first person account of a 23 year marriage. every word of every paragraph was tuned there was not a wrong note. it was so powerful imented to believe it was her marriage. that last paragraph contained the wedding vow when he swore he would not be afraid to let her chafrnl him much the crowd froze after she finished. then we exploded into applause. she stood in the spotlight with tears in her eyes. she s a retired psychotherapist. go to her. this was a scene of a romantic comedy. i had to catch her at the airport before she left me forever. she was stopped by audience member after audience member. iment to talk to her but what would i say? well, what are you trying to get from her. her question was koejent for someone who had polished off her third drink. i want to come out of retirement and i want her to help me. i don t think it s realistic. you keep thinking i need to find the restroom. i wasn t listening to the reader on stage. she was talking to 3-20 something women. she back and grabbing at my arm. we need to leave now. why? dustin is here and he is with someone and she s cute. did he see you? no. i can t talk to him i m a mess. are you sure he s really with her and they are not friends. she s hanging all over him and i didn t get to pee. let s go, then. we fought our way out the door. i cast the last look with senora it was just as well i hasn t found anything to say. i tried to calm aguilarissa, she schemed in terror. i can t go in there what if kevin is in there with his wife. what if i keep seeing them. she leaned on the door of the laundry mat. the asian woman looked at us and resumed folding. your ex s will not be there they are ill literate. i bet justin is engaged to that girl. she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket except for the cancer part. i m never getting married. she sank to the ground her back pressed against the glass. who says that s the meaning of life. it was a beautiful story but if you think about it it s hoeky. there is nothing hoeky about loving someone with your heart and having them love you the same way. that s how everyone doesn t love me. i didn t know what to say. there was nothing hoeky about a great love. yeary 3, 712 and 23 had been painful. some had been bory put it together and it was a life of great love. that was the only way it could be done. empty sidewalk was jammed with people. i held her as they streamed by. thank you. from the last 2 pages i wrote in my novel. after the events in entertainment room number 17. with the man who had been pretending to be her husband. the imposter didn t have his own name. he used ga as he wore ga s clothes and slept as her husband had on the couch. he drove with the high beams on and reunification boulevard. they were in a mustang and there were no other cars on the road. passing through the park they saw families in the dark steeling chest nuts from the trees. at dinner everyone called him commander ga even though he didn t look like commander ga. see knew that this man was not going to leave that her husband was not coming back be and from now on this man wouldn t be wished away. he would have to be dealt with as her husband had to be dealt with. they crossed the river the bridge lights showing the color of his bruises. they drove through the cemetery and the amusement park. she asked about the vehicle they were driving. he turned side ways in the road. the headlights was a man running from the zoo with an oan egg in his hand. do you feel the man hungry enough to steel or for the man who must hunt him down. is that the bird who suffers? thwhere did you get this ca? he didn t answer. you know it s a fake; right . this car, he said is revered in america. they are quite rare much i recognize this car it was a prop in one of my movies. this was the car he was escaping i saw kissed a trader in the back seat. how did you get this thing off the property lot? one switch in the road above the gardens and they were at her house. inside the children were asleep and he pulled a bottle of [inaudible] from the cool place under the sink he held it with a hand who s combukelled fanned yellow. you have chosen to become a man born to violence. he answered it was the commander who chose me. okay sun moon said i will turn down the sheets for us much the bed faced a balcony over looking the mountain. across the river was a glow much the 2 disrobed and entered where they lay awake waiting until 10 o clock. it s a common misconception that listening devices turn off in the power. with a can of peaches the kalt rad had given them. when the house and city below went dark moon spoke, here are the rules she said. children will reveal their names to you when they decide to do so. you will never use ta eshe k wo on them. you will never touch me. she said. from below they heard dogs bang in the zoo. wait, i take that back. you are allowed to touch me only if i touch you first. are there more rules? i m thinking she said. a quick blue flash filled the room and all was dark again. in prison he said, so many people through themselves at the electric fence they had to build another fence to keep them off of it. thank in conjunction with an an exhi bigz we had ann an exhi bigz we had ann anan tholl have the same title. it s my pleasure to introduce some of the writers from this book. i will give you an introduction of each of them as i introduce them for their speaking turn. first up we have debbie yee. debbie yee is an attorney and poet and supporter and organizer of the nonprofit asian american arts community. she s received her undergraduate and law degrees from uc berkeley and bolt. born and raised in sacramento, california. she continues to call northern california her home. and now lives in san francisco. so, with that i d like to introduce debbie yee as our first speaker. this is called jasper john s wagon. i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno, nevada. i don t know if it exists it s a really old postcard. harold s club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold s club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or the reverse w s topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it s own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it s no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t s and v s stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s s the determinant d s and resultant r s where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it s father s avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it s difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it s rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts. diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men s arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus s shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn s ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children s book ill administrator, curator and art s administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art s sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needs my arm for balance but avoids my touch. she counts the 10 sign posts. 5 stop signs and 2 mailboxes to our destination. she moves her lips as if remembering. before i came here, i had a name. 4 palm trees faced us when we landed loomed like guardians to pass the golden gate we tell them what they wanted to hear. on this island of desperate dreams we shed our skins and wore new once. we burned our parents name and let our past curl into smoke. no longer my father s daughter. no longer my husband s wife. only the sea gulls know who i really am. for months we were held in separate rooms the dampness went through the bunks and gnawed our bones the wales of ghosts kept us awake. 32 steps to my father s house. 4 windows facing north. 24 steps to my uncle s house, 2 doors facing south. i have 3 sisters, 2 brothers, 4 cousins on my father s side. now i store the memory in a drawer along with bitter herbs and rhinoceros horns we dine at restaurants on the better side of towns with pink table cloths and real flowers in the vases. we hardly go to china town. before i came here, i held his hand. now my heart is a chinese box of riddels, no one understands. i blew hot soup for her on foggy nights. she trims the ends of my thinning hair, still she can t forget that day she faced the interrogation officers and said she was my sister. i have not told anyone we move like shadows in a haze of secrets and lies. now stairs fascinate her. she knows the neighbor s house by heart. 21 steps to the door. 9 windows. 1-1/2 bathrooms. she counts every timely visit just to make sure. in case one day she has to know. before i came here, i had a name. ships of wind. softly size the swaying trees in the secret place stilled by time. we toil between the deep brown earth crumbs past frommant toant in orderly procession surrounded by crushed new born grass and flattened flowers. many of us have died here. who s secret [inaudible] we do not know. nor the shift of wind the sudden wake that blocked the sun changes the course and brought with it the endless nights. we enl know the passing of
fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno, nevada. i don t know if it exists it s a really old postcard. harold s club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold s club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or the reverse w s topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it s own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it s no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t s and v s stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s s the determinant d s and resultant r s where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it s father s avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it s difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it s rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts. diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men s arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus s shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn s ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children s book ill administrator, curator and art s administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art s sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needs my arm for balance but avoids my touch. she counts the 10 sign posts. 5 stop signs and 2 mailboxes to our destination. she moves her lips as if remembering. before i came here, i had a name. 4 palm trees faced us when we landed loomed like guardians to pass the golden gate we tell them what they wanted to hear. on this island of desperate dreams we shed our skins and wore new once. we burned our parents name and let our past curl into smoke. no longer my father s daughter. no longer my husband s wife. only the sea gulls know who i really am. for months we were held in separate rooms the dampness went through the bunks and gnawed our bones the wales of ghosts kept us awake. 32 steps to my father s house. 4 windows facing north. 24 steps to my uncle s house, 2 doors facing south. i have 3 sisters, 2 brothers, 4 cousins on my father s side. now i store the memory in a drawer along with bitter herbs and rhinoceros horns we dine at restaurants on the better side of towns with pink table cloths and real flowers in the vases. we hardly go to china town. before i came here, i held his hand. now my heart is a chinese box of riddels, no one understands. i blew hot soup for her on foggy nights. she trims the ends of my thinning hair, still she can t forget that day she faced the interrogation officers and said she was my sister. i have not told anyone we move like shadows in a haze of secrets and lies. now stairs fascinate her. she knows the neighbor s house by heart. 21 steps to the door. 9 windows. 1-1/2 bathrooms. she counts every timely visit just to make sure. in case one day she has to know. before i came here, i had a name. ships of wind. softly size the swaying trees in the secret place stilled by time. we toil between the deep brown earth crumbs past frommant toant in orderly procession surrounded by crushed new born grass and flattened flowers. many of us have died here. who s secret [inaudible] we do not know. nor the shift of wind the sudden wake that blocked the sun changes the course and brought with it the endless nights. we enl know the passing of formless clouds o pass the porch forced to forge a new since the coming of the black rain. number 2. there secrets here not ever known. we only carry the sudden weight of memories. not at hair pins, green tea, rice balls wrapped in silken cloth. melted crayons, moth and marbles. flightless wings in a brown bag. they are safe inside us. neither shift of wind nor sun s cruel wrath can force us from our charge into the endless night we stand our ground monolithic protectors of the broken spirit. 3. there was a place sacred beaconed by time. i remember. the new born grass trampled beneath the earth. no one else should die here. there was a flash, no, 2 secrets locked in a fire ball. the shift of wind the sudden weight of blue heat formless days worn past, changed since the coming of endless night. and my last poem speaks to world events. and now i m also thinking about the atrocities in berma. called the world i leave you. once there were 2 towers then there were none. i searched among the rubble for bones of men. what kind of world i leave you, what s human left of race? what more can i give you to resurrect your faith? smiles, i give and laughter like rain, flakes of snow that gently splay against the window pain. light transformed to rainbow, sweat from a dancer s brow. giggles of rivers running down mountains, flowers unfolding to face the sky. pain from sclap nal s path. blood from solders punctured hearts still borns pushed from aching wombs this belongs to you. dirt and miracles reborn. sweetness made sweeter by bitter sun and shadow forged as one. once there were 2 towers then there were none. between the once and the then lay all the hopes and fears of men. this is the world i leave you. ripe and full as a mother s breast. a baby s licking tongue grabbing hand and glistened eyes. thank you. [applause]. our next reader is rashne. lived studies and work indeed india, pakistan, lebanon, the united states and mexico. she is the editor of living in america. poetry and fiction by south asian american writers. encounter people of asian decent in the americas her novel, braided tongue was published in 2003. i introduce rashne. i m reading from a selection from a longer narrative. memory is no longer confused. it has a home land. from a farm by the late ali. sometimes the circle breaks and the woman meets the child. face-to-face. each one seeing for the first time her strength in the other. a poem by jenny. [inaudible]. after more than a year of e mails and phone conversations, amy,ling and i met at the university of wisconsin in madison. it was sometime during the mid 1980. calcutta was very hot, said amy. i wondered how our conversation about asian american literature veered to calcutta? calcutta was very hot but i got my first doll there. we spent some time in calcutta when we fled to the united states. the doll didn t look like me blond hair and blue ice bought from calcutta. she comforted me when i remember the sounds of the japanese bombs that forced us to leave our home. did you have a dog? an indian doll to comfort you when you were a child? i told amy about my doll named champy and my oldest paternal uncle who resembled chinese ancestors. my uncle was an astounding musician played the violin and k helo. i would pick up shanty s head and place her ears on the door because her ears were smaller than my ears. i wanted her to listen carefully to the wonderful sound. i may have know in the way children know but my uncle s music would disappear from my life far too soon. he died when he was 40 years old. i tried to tell amy how my grand mother asked everyone why no one could bring her oldest son back to life even after we made great progress in medical science. but in the end, broke my grand mother s heart was her 2 daughters could not come for their brother s funeral. when it explained to her that my aunts who lived in india and pack tan were considered enemy aliens we looked at us as we were inmates. we are brothers and sisters all of them are my children and went to grieve in the privacy of her prayers. we were quiet for sometime, both of us try to break away from the sounds of bombs and the sounds of grieve that accompany the tearing apart of people. 1 from the other. amy broke our silence. what do you mean pieces of your doll. i had 3 dolls all 3 were shanty. all 3 dolls were made of brittle plastic like material we called cutcha caw. they were hollow the different parts of their bodies were hooked with rubber bands. whatever held those 3 parts together they always broke within a few weeks and the dolls continued to exist in their separate components. i suspect my male cousin was the deconductor of the dolls. the grownups promised to reconstruct them but didn t have the time to follow up on their promises or forgot i was carrying around parts of dolls. except one aunt. she screamed every time she saw me carrying the 3 sets of legs and arms and 3 heads 234 thericcety carriage i pushed around. to assure my aunt the dolls were doing well. i would reassemble them mixing and matching the different parts of the dolls. may be it was a child s way of remembering the acts and the passion of iceis in search of her fragmented husband and the passion of [inaudible] tearing apart and putting together her colonizing bright sister. i still love dolls i collect them. what about you asked amy. she was disapointed when i told her that i hadn t cared from dolls since i was in my early teens. in the late 1990 s a friend wanted to give me a custom made doll. i requested a chinese young girl doll. and with my friend s permission i gaveamy the doll. the last time i saw the doll was in a collection of dolls aranged with great care in the house by the lake in madison where amy s memorial was held in 1999. last year, 7 years after amy s death i saw an old woman selling dolls right in front of the young federalist blocking the entrance to the [inaudible] and the conflict torn town. in 2006. and i thought of amy. and her passion for justice. and her love of dolls. later that evening, i thought of amy again. i found my friend shanty at the dining room table watching the television news about iraq. she was touching one of the most grotesque doll i had seen much the doll is 10 inches tall and look as if she was dying offan rexia. she was in a long gown, of course, blontd hair and green ice. if you can mag manual a bizarre version of a barbie that doll was it. returned from the 15th birthday celebration of friends of the family and the doll was part of the souvenir package given to all the female guests. everyone was given that doll. i was about to make a joke about that doll when i realized that 53 year old shanty was holding on to that doll as if it was a talisman. she turned to the television and said, i hope i never have to eat squirrel meat again. [inaudible] shanta was born in the mountains and grew up as the poorest of poor. when she was 5 years old her father died and her uncle gave her to a family that owned a small ranch and now owns a [inaudible]. i was in surprise that one time she had eaten squirrel meat but i wonder what brought up the squirrel meat that evening. shanta rocked the doll and told me when she was 4 or younger she found out there were dolls in the world. apparently her father told her about some of the girls in the city had little make believe babies. shanta wanted a doll. her parents laughed and shook their head. her favorite brother went to the mountains, caught the biggest squirrel he could find. kill today, cleaned out the meat, stuffed the clean squirrel with dry grass and presented the squirrel to shanta as her make believe baby. shanta loved her brother s gift but could never eat squirrel meat. the sound of loud bombs went off. we both jumped. last winter when we heard loud noises we wondered if they were bombs or fire works set off for a celebration or if they were professional or homemade rockets being exchanged with demonstrators and the federalists. shanta put her doll against her shoulder and patted the doll s back in the universal gesture of burping the baby. her last words to me last night were; does anyone know how many babies and children have been killed in iraq? how many babies and children are being killed or thrown out of their homes all over the world. why does everyone want to ask indigenous pe
of my novel that [inaudible] good mexican novelists. alexander looked at the mirror and saw a mexican stairing back at him. the bad mexican had paid alexander a visit much the conversation from last night s party brought him back in full force. why did he always have to open his big mouth. why tell people that don t care that he hated and despised? he actually might like the [inaudible] hated me english and spanish he could not understand how someone could say he was mexican having been born in the usa. he doesn t like going to mexican places. he does not like to discuss beer and shots of tequilla. he never listened to spanish radio stations. no more mexicans. who did not have a problem being objective with a mexican. [inaudible]. i should try to do something about this he thought this is not good. may be i should try, may be i should make an effort. may be i should drive to the mission and spend quality time with my own people. i m sure it would be simple. he doesn t have to be so hard. i am sure anyone who looks at me and talks to me will believe i m another south of the border specimen and never figure out i happen to be a self hating mexican. the self hating something made him think of the self hating jew. he thought of george constanza and woody allen. he thought of philip and alexander s father yelling and screaming telling his son he was the son of the family shames. you don t be deserved to be called a view. you, alexander are being embarrassed by the surface of the mirror. you don t deserve to be a mexican. nor the fact that mexicans are the hardest working people and came here to work and give their children a better future. there is no mexican who tried to justify with arguments like a fantasy to celebrate cinco de mayo. you, my friend are the self hating [inaudible] of all mexicans. you are nothing but a big master baeter. foolish man who hides from the rest of the world and sees his shame in order to dream a man can exist without a pas port or green card and labels him as what he is. remember the ones who tried to pass as something else? remember the [inaudible] of life. the [inaudible] of the nation of the [inaudible]. remember the guy from tijuana you met years ago and is proclaimed he was italian because he would and people believed him. as if being italian was a step up. you alexander have changed your entire people. you who dream of an american time will be relevant you can think in order to be an american writer you have to quit your brownness because the adjective will get in the way of the important noun. english language will impose the adjective before the noun and your face will be imposed before the actual meaning of your life. the other one is not the [inaudible] but the black parent. that one there is the yellow which he willo player. language makes sense [inaudible] language is never innocent. it is a familiar domaine of the ones who came out with it s loss and structure. this, alexander, is not your tongue. your tongue is muteulated, it s gone, rotten in your mouth along with the silence of the days where you became invisible you bad copy cat. despite the rage and the disappointment of your own kin. thank you. [applause] this is a scene from my novel [inaudible]. it seemed like a great opportunity to get to do this here. okay. what time is the first reader anyway? i didn t like bars this crowded. someone elbode me in the back. when i turned around i didn t know who the elbow belong said. relax. i didn t expect there to be this many people i thought they would be at the bar with the travel writers. i thought they the be with the hip sters i guess we are not hip sters we can t guess who they are into. we lessened the hipster intimidation factor and picked out the smart guy. this year we selected postmen pausal writers on the meaning of life. here i was, the city never fails to surprise me much the crowd was quieting. people were pointing toward the stage. i woman of 60 clamored on to it. she had silver hair and had a long velvet skirt. i m senora watson. there was applause. she lowered her head slightly to indicate her humility. i must confess i was surprised to be invited tonight. i m embarrassed to say i didn t know young people were drunkenly stumbling through the streets in the name of literature. there is a mag natizism we were tealing. we were in a bar. here is my flawed worthwhile attempt to approach the meaning of life. she read a first person account of a 23 year marriage. every word of every paragraph was tuned there was not a wrong note. it was so powerful imented to believe it was her marriage. that last paragraph contained the wedding vow when he swore he would not be afraid to let her chafrnl him much the crowd froze after she finished. then we exploded into applause. she stood in the spotlight with tears in her eyes. she s a retired psychotherapist. go to her. this was a scene of a romantic comedy. i had to catch her at the airport before she left me forever. she was stopped by audience member after audience member. iment to talk to her but what would i say? well, what are you trying to get from her. her question was koejent for someone who had polished off her third drink. i want to come out of retirement and i want her to help me. i don t think it s realistic. you keep thinking i need to find the restroom. i wasn t listening to the reader on stage. she was talking to 3-20 something women. she back and grabbing at my arm. we need to leave now. why? dustin is here and he is with someone and she s cute. did he see you? no. i can t talk to him i m a mess. are you sure he s really with her and they are not friends. she s hanging all over him and i didn t get to pee. let s go, then. we fought our way out the door. i cast the last look with senora it was just as well i hasn t found anything to say. i tried to calm aguilarissa, she schemed in terror. i can t go in there what if kevin is in there with his wife. what if i keep seeing them. she leaned on the door of the laundry mat. the asian woman looked at us and resumed folding. your ex s will not be there they are ill literate. i bet justin is engaged to that girl. she wiped her eyes with the sleeve of her jacket except for the cancer part. i m never getting married. she sank to the ground her back pressed against the glass. who says that s the meaning of life. it was a beautiful story but if you think about it it s hoeky. there is nothing hoeky about loving someone with your heart and having them love you the same way. that s how everyone doesn t love me. i didn t know what to say. there was nothing hoeky about a great love. yeary 3, 712 and 23 had been painful. some had been bory put it together and it was a life of great love. that was the only way it could be done. empty sidewalk was jammed with people. i held her as they streamed by. thank you. from the last 2 pages i wrote in my novel. after the events in entertainment room number 17. with the man who had been pretending to be her husband. the imposter didn t have his own name. he used ga as he wore ga s clothes and slept as her husband had on the couch. he drove with the high beams on and reunification boulevard. they were in a mustang and there were no other cars on the road. passing through the park they saw families in the dark steeling chest nuts from the trees. at dinner everyone called him commander ga even though he didn t look like commander ga. see knew that this man was not going to leave that her husband was not coming back be and from now on this man wouldn t be wished away. he would have to be dealt with as her husband had to be dealt with. they crossed the river the bridge lights showing the color of his bruises. they drove through the cemetery and the amusement park. she asked about the vehicle they were driving. he turned side ways in the road. the headlights was a man running from the zoo with an oan egg in his hand. do you feel the man hungry enough to steel or for the man who must hunt him down. is that the bird who suffers? thwhere did you get this ca? he didn t answer. you know it s a fake; right . this car, he said is revered in america. they are quite rare much i recognize this car it was a prop in one of my movies. this was the car he was escaping i saw kissed a trader in the back seat. how did you get this thing off the property lot? one switch in the road above the gardens and they were at her house. inside the children were asleep and he pulled a bottle of [inaudible] from the cool place under the sink he held it with a hand who s combukelled fanned yellow. you have chosen to become a man born to violence. he answered it was the commander who chose me. okay sun moon said i will turn down the sheets for us much the bed faced a balcony over looking the mountain. across the river was a glow much the 2 disrobed and entered where they lay awake waiting until 10 o clock. it s a common misconception that listening devices turn off in the power. with a can of peaches the kalt rad had given them. when the house and city below went dark moon spoke, here are the rules she said. children will reveal their names to you when they decide to do so. you will never use ta eshe k wo on them. you will never touch me. she said. from below they heard dogs bang in the zoo. wait, i take that back. you are allowed to touch me only if i touch you first. are there more rules? i m thinking she said. a quick blue flash filled the room and all was dark again. in prison he said, so many people through themselves at the electric fence they had to build another fence to keep them off of it. thank in conjunction with an an exhi bigz we had ann an exhi bigz we had ann anan tholl have the same title. it s my pleasure to introduce some of the writers from this book. i will give you an introduction of each of them as i introduce them for their speaking turn. first up we have debbie yee. debbie yee is an attorney and poet and supporter and organizer of the nonprofit asian american arts community. she s received her undergraduate and law degrees from uc berkeley and bolt. born and raised in sacramento, california. she continues to call northern california her home. and now lives in san francisco. so, with that i d like to introduce debbie yee as our first speaker. this is called jasper john s wagon. i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno, nevada. i don t know if it exists it s a really old postcard. harold s club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold s club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or the reverse w s topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it s own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it s no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t s and v s stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s s the determinant d s and resultant r s where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it s father s avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it s difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it s rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts. diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men s arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus s shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn s ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children s book ill administrator, curator and art s administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art s sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needsy
this is called jasper john s wagon. i have an idea of how the fifth star was killed dear empire not by gunfire at close range, not in the study with the pen knife, not by the umbrella, crushed by the revolving door not jostled or hemorrhaged the narrow drain. we caught the tar and the bullet we came to the body encostic casement of skin rig motor us framed the opened mouths scream. wail for your mother wrap our sons in silken ribbons in a galaxy. the cause has been perp traited. we are adrift on a baron sea. the fleet diminishes me. who shouts for us now, dear empire? this next one is a postcard for a reason that i kept of harold s club in reno, nevada. i don t know if it exists it s a really old postcard. harold s club made we think of harold and the purple crayon. harold s club. who would figure let loose the boy with the purple crayon. let him conkokt the loses slots in women. let loose his imagination. ended as high as sea gulls or the reverse w s topped with bold topped centers the rudeaments of the buzzum and life itself. pen and ink. in the way we demonstrate speech by quotation marks the ill administrator kapt urs speed by 2 lines of the pen much the trotting horse quoted at the knees all 4 and the lady side saddled atop him frozen in place by crossed hatched marks. courseut to indicate the petticoat aroused into activity by the muscular steed. unintended garden. whether o(inaudible) the propery line, i promise not to water the spring flower and plants that remain as brown stubbel on the chins of my train. take care of dry foilage. i let the japanese maybel swat the afi ds on it s own. purple spotted brush. 2 calla lillies take root. birds return listening to lost meats all day until dusk beckons them to come to the nest and try again in the morning. this next poem is indian an ina ontholingly. on telegraph avenue it s no longer in existence, the sadness of this. berkeley, late fall. um this is from forest hamer who is a bay area poet who wrote berkeley late spring. this is berkeley late fall. i have been browsing the peet ree section had come to lose the unconcern but persistant rain that followed me in as a trail of damp shoe prints and dripping conscientious hacompanied to a solitude. i ran my right index if anything are across each spine flesh going along volume and groove. imagine the book seller anding by to fold and flatten we down to on an oblong shape and reshelf me into an americay sandwich between the t s and v s stacked up along the unexpected and unknown. i notice that the pe ems i imagine crowding around you were the unquieted the unrequited. distant citizens far from the disposition of the safety of s s the determinant d s and resultant r s where the poems are make believe. unlike the bumpy organic one i find myself wandering into. this one is about the moon. mabel and maureen. the moon regrets it s father s avd vise, take the night shift. [laughter]. each evening he dressed his forehead in linseed oil and drying powerhouse the expansion of reflection. it s difficult to get shut eye the hours before how the sunshines and how dollar is no curtain wide enough to screen it s rays. he takes out his bag lunching mouthfuls of apple juice and pb and j. on his watchdog garts. diners are darkened, empty much we are not open for you, moon they seem to say. and so said the cart vendors the waitresses like mabel and maureen. how mabel and lauereen stroll indeed full skirted prichled merrily the moon lit evening arms in other men s arms. this next one is, the next 2, which are my last 2 are something about passing. among us. in the sunken spring as in winter and fall and every season that our teak of spring with souro and jubulation are fragile hearts are as children grabbing drink tumblers spilld and milky. teach finger tips reaches for the stars and night clouds hopeful that we might give respite to our orbegans our earth bound regrets. we ask or wonder in the moments when we catch ourselves breathing where do the beloved go. in the warm cham bers of the living. we imagine how they might wallow away our earthly number of days playing gin rummy with another grand mother. ladies of historical footnotes. telescope the heavens on capurncus s shirt tales. wounds and so spots pounding out quiet inner drum beats while we traverse the gravity boots. warmed bite disassistant c.j. hunt inner spaces is dusted with enchantments of what love has left us. this is tile. consider the corn s ear a tiling of pale yellow pillows, tiny. or hexagonal pearls addressed on the bathroom floor. i flip through a 12 month calendar each tile numbered, each 30, each sheet of a dozen passing, passing. thank you. [applause] our next speaker is nancy hong. nancy is an artist, writer, children s book ill administrator, curator and art s administrator. devoted her artistic career to the nonprofit art s sector creatingim mags for political, social and community events and causes her writing has been published in severalan tholologies. with that i introduce nancy hong. thank you for coming this is called bread and soup. beneath the bear bulb we gather to eat our evening meal of bread and soup. here behind the mission walls the kind speaks to us in euphemisms we avoids staring at our brown roasts faces, our hard boiled hands and violet veins he mouths his words like a fish careful not to mention china to us who are now fartherless and motherless in this new country. he does not know we created our own miracle that transformed the stale, hard crust into wrich crackling pork skinning. the soup and broth. our lips smack in satisfaction of this, our only taste of home. this piece is on angel island. the angel island immigration station where chinese and otherim grants were detained and interrogated from 1910 to 1940 before they were allowed into america. many adopted false identities in order to escape this strict act. our morning strolls to mountain lake park my wife of 50 years stays a step behind. she needs my arm for balance but avoids my touch. she counts the 10 sign posts. 5 stop signs and 2 mailboxes to our destination. she moves her lips as if remembering. before i came here, i had a name. 4 palm trees faced us when we landed loomed like guardians to pass the golden gate we tell them what they wanted to hear. on this island of desperate dreams we shed our skins and wore new once. we burned our parents name and let our past curl into smoke. no longer my father s daughter. no longer my husband s wife. only the sea gulls know who i really am. for months we were held in separate rooms the dampness went through the bunks and gnawed our bones the wales of ghosts kept us awake. 32 steps to my father s house. 4 windows facing north. 24 steps to my uncle s house, 2 doors facing south. i have 3 sisters, 2 brothers, 4 cousins on my father s side. now i store the memory in a drawer along with bitter herbs and rhinoceros horns we dine at restaurants on the better side of towns with pink table cloths and real flowers in the vases. we hardly go to china town. before i came here, i held his hand. now my heart is a chinese box of riddels, no one understands. i blew hot soup for her on foggy nights. she trims the ends of my thinning hair, still she can t forget that day she faced the interrogation officers and said she was my sister. i have not told anyone we move like shadows in a haze of secrets and lies. now stairs fascinate her. she knows the neighbor s house by heart. 21 steps to the door. 9 windows. 1-1/2 bathrooms. she counts every timely visit just to make sure. in case one day she has to know. before i came here, i had a name. ships of wind. softly size the swaying trees in the secret place stilled by time. we toil between the deep brown earth crumbs past frommant toant in orderly procession surrounded by crushed new born grass and flattened flowers. many of us have died here. who s secret [inaudible] we do not know. nor the shift of wind the sudden wake that blocked the sun changes the course and brought with it the endless nights. we enl know the passing of formless clouds o pass the porch forced to forge a new since the coming of the black rain. number 2. there secrets here not ever known. we only carry the sudden weight of memories. not at hair pins, green tea, rice balls wrapped in silken cloth. melted crayons, moth and marbles. flightless wings in a brown bag. they are safe inside us. neither shift of wind nor sun s cruel wrath can force us from our charge into the endless night we stand our ground monolithic protectors of the broken spirit. 3. there was a place sacred beaconed by time. i remember. the new born grass trampled beneath the earth. no one else should die here. there was a flash, no, 2 secrets locked in a fire ball. the shift of wind the sudden weight of blue heat formless days worn past, changed since the coming of endless night. and my last poem speaks to world events. and now i m also thinking about the atrocities in berma. called the world i leave you. once there were 2 towers then there were none. i searched among the rubble for bones of men. what kind of world i leave you, what s human left of race? what more can i give you to resurrect your faith? smiles, i give and laughter like rain, flakes of snow that gently splay against the window pain. light transformed to rainbow, sweat from a dancer s brow. giggles of rivers running down mountains, flowers unfolding to face the sky. pain from sclap nal s path. blood from solders punctured hearts still borns pushed from aching wombs this belongs to you. dirt and miracles reborn. sweetness made sweeter by bitter sun and shadow forged as one. once there were 2 towers then there were none. between the once and the then lay all the hopes and fears of men. this is the world i leave you. ripe and full as a mother s breast. a baby s licking tongue grabbing hand and glistened eyes. thank you. [applause]. our next reader is rashne. lived studies and work indeed india, pakistan, lebanon, the united states and mexico. she is the editor of living in america. poetry and fiction by south asian american writers. encounter people of asian decent in the americas her novel, braided tongue was published in 2003. i introduce rashne. i m reading from a selection from a longer narrative. memory is no longer confused. it has a home land. from a farm by the late ali. sometimes the circle breaks and the woman meets the child. face-to-face. each one seeing for the first time her strength in the other. a poem by jenny. [inaudible]. after more than a year of e mails and phone conversations, amy,ling and i met at the university of wisconsin in madison. it was sometime during the mid 1980. calcutta was very hot, said amy. i wondered how our conversation about asian american literature veered to calcutta? calcutta was very hot but i got my first doll there. we spent some time in calcutta when we fled to the united states. the doll didn t look like me blond hair and blue ice bought from calcutta. she comforted me when i remember the sounds of the japanese bombs that forced us to leave our home. did you have a dog? an indian doll to comfort you when you were a child? i told amy about my doll named champy and my oldest paternal uncle who resembled chinese ancestors. my uncle was an astounding musician played the violin and k helo. i would pick up shanty s head and place her ears on the door because her ears were smaller than my ears. i wanted her to listen carefully to the wonderful sound. i may have know in the way children know but my uncle s music would disappear from my life far too soon. he died when he was 40 years old. i tried to tell amy how my grand mother asked everyone why no one could bring her oldest son back to life even after we made great progress in medical science. but in the end, broke my grand mother s heart was her 2 daughters could not come for their brother s funeral. when it explained to her that my aunts who lived in india and pack tan were considered enemy aliens we looked at us as we were inmates. we are brothers and sisters all of them are my children and went to grieve in the privacy of her prayers. we were quiet for sometime, both of us try to break away from the sounds of bombs and the sounds of grieve that accompany the tearing apart of people. 1 from the other. amy broke our silence. what do you mean pieces of your doll. i had 3 dolls all 3 were shanty. all 3 dolls were made of brittle plastic like material we called cutcha caw. they were hollow the different parts of their bodies were hooked with rubber bands. whatever held those 3 parts together they always broke within a few weeks and the dolls continued to exist in their separate components. i suspect my male cousin was the deconductor of the dolls. the grownups promised to reconstruct them but didn t have the time to follow up on their promises or forgot i was carrying around parts of dolls. except one aunt. she screamed every time she saw me carrying the 3 sets of legs and arms and 3 heads 234 thericcety carriage i pushed around. to assure my aunt the dolls were doing well. i would reassemble them mixing and matching the different parts of the dolls. may be it was a child s way of remembering the acts and the passion of iceis in search of her fragmented husband and the passion of [inaudible] tearing apart and putting together her colonizing bright sister. i still love dolls i collect them. what about you asked amy. she was disapointed when i told her that i hadn t cared from dolls since i was in my early teens. in the late 1990 s a friend wanted to give me a custom made doll. i requested a chinese young girl doll. and with my friend s permission i gaveamy the doll. the last time i saw the doll was in a collection of dolls aranged with great care in the house by the lake in madison where amy s memorial was held in 1999. last year, 7 years after amy s death i saw an old woman selling dolls right in front of the young federalist blocking the entrance to the [inaudible] and the conflict torn town. in 2006. and i thought of amy. and her passion for justice. and her love of dolls. later that evening, i thought of amy again. i found my friend shanty at the dining room table watching the television news about iraq. she was touching one of the most grotesque doll i had seen much the doll is 10 inches tall and look as if she was dying offan rexia. she was in a long gown, of course, blontd hair and green ice. if you can mag manual a bizarre version of a barbie that doll was it. returned from the 15th birthday celebration of friends of the family and the doll was part of the souvenir package given to all the female guests. everyone was given that doll. i was about to make a joke about that doll when i realized that 53 year old shanty was holding on to that doll as if it was a talisman. she turned to the television and said, i hope i never have to eat squirrel meat again. [inaudible] shanta was born in the mountains and grew up as the poorest of poor. when she was 5 years old her father died and her uncle gave her to a family that owned a small ranch and now owns a [inaudible]. i was in surprise that one time she had eaten squirrel meat but i wonder what brought up the squirrel meat that evening. shanta rocked the doll and told me when she was 4 or younger she found out there were dolls in the world. apparently her father told her about some of the girls in the city had little make believe babies. shanta wanted a doll. her parents laughed and shook their head. her favorite brother went to the mountains, caught the biggest squirrel he could find. kill today, cleaned out the meat, stuffed the clean squirrel with dry grass and presented the squirrel to shanta as her make believe baby. shanta loved her brother s gift but could never eat squirrel meat. the sound of loud bombs went off. we both jumped. last winter when we heard loud noises we wondered if they were bombs or fire works set off for a celebration or if they were professional or homemade rockets being exchanged with demonstrators and the federalists. shanta put her doll against her shoulder and patted the doll s back in the universal gesture of burping the baby. her last words to me last night were; does anyone know how many babies and children have been killed in iraq? how many babies and children are being killed or thrown out of their homes all over the world. why does everyone want to