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An improvisation on a theme from Monica Youn's From From.*
Last month, I explored some racial questions suggested by The
Great Gatsby that, in turn, prompted some interrogation into my own sense of identity as an alleged white person. For a writer, for any artist, these considerations move beyond the merely personal into the spaces in which we work, teach and learn, publish and provide publication, and in general interact with fellow artists. Despite some advances, far too many literary spaces—workshops, classrooms, degree programs, journals—are still de facto if not de
jure white run and
dominated. I intend to
explore this topic, or
rather, complex of
topics, over the coming
months.
This piece
grew out a of a short
essay I recently posted
on Substack. I had just
read Korean-American
poet Monica Youn's
collection, From From.
Apparently, once an
Asian-American has
answered a white
interlocutor as to what
city he or she was born
in, the next question
is "But where are you from from?"—i.e., What is your ethnicity?
"But
both figures are
considered
Asian—one from
Colchis, one from
Korea.//To mention the
'Asianness' of the
figures creates a
"racial marker in the
poem.//This means that
the poem can no longer
be read as a White
Poem, that different
can be expected to read
the poem, that they can
be expected to read the
poem in different
ways.//To mention the
Asianness of the
figures is also to
mention, by
implication, the
Asianness of the poet."
—Monica Youn, "Study of Two Figures (Pasiphae / Sado," in
From From)
This provocative
passage from a book
that is a provocation
in its entirety,
triggered some
questions regarding
rights and privileges
when writing about
race, who gets to write
whose experiences, what
if anything is
off-limits or
restricted to writers
of a particular color
or ethnicity. As a
white poet and social
justice activist, I am
obviously seriously
concerned about these
topics obviously of
critical importance.
If I write a poem about
any of the traditional
topics of
European-American
poetry, does that make
it a white poem? Even
if you don't know my
race?
If a Person of Color
writes that same poem,
is it a
Black/Asian/Latinx
poem?
If I write a poem in
support of Black Lives
Matter, does that make
it a white poem? If a
Person of Color writes
it? Am I even allowed
to write it if I'm
white?
If a Person of Color
writes a poem about
white life that is not
derogatory or
satirical, does that
make it a white poem?
Same question in
reverse if I write a
poem that celebrates
the lives of People of
Color.
None of these questions
even approach further
questions about who if
anyone can write in the
persona of a character
of a different race,
whether Blackface,
Yellowface, Brownface,
or Whiteface is ever
acceptable. Nor the
fraught subject of
cultural appropriation.
These are subjects for
long articles, panels,
whole books. I will
have a look at some
these resources in the
future.
Why am I asking these questions?
I'm a poet—it's my job to tackle the hard questions.
*Greywolf Press, 2023
https://www.graywolfpress.org/books/from-from
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