Small Press: Nick Carbo, 'Chinese, Japanese, What Are These?'

July 13, 2009

Into the text we go, beginning with the death of the poetic speaker's mother. This is the beginning of the heartbreak; the speaker has come unmoored, from family, from a home base, and finds anchor instead in language. Chinese, Japanese, What Are These? is a largely multilingual text in which the poet and the poetic speaker can only truly communicate by moving in and out of English, in that space where meaning can get lost with translation.

In "Fukujoshi," we are told various cultures' terms for death during orgasm. "Fukujoshi," he tells us, means, "death atop the stomach." He believes Bruce Lee died this way. Here, Carbo gives our Asian American male icon not just sexuality, but eroticism.

Carbo writes also about his own desire quite openly. This desire is also tied to using language, where there is pleasure in meaning and sound. We see this in poems throughout this collection including "Lechuga Pechuga," "Her Ahs and Ohs," "Saussure's Remedy," and in "Rising from Your Book," which is both a litany and an abecedarian:

the silence of Telemachus' taurine thighs
the silence of November's umbra
the silence of Anne Boleyn's unhallowed head
the silence of Fermat's vinculums
the silence of wambling bees
the silence of Dali's xanthous eruptions
the silence of a persuasive yoni
the silence of feasting zyzzyva

Running throughout this entire collection is his dissatisfaction with American ineloquence, American monolingualism and monoculturalism, and American intolerance for "others." In "Dirty Knees," when the mean-spirited rhyme of the book title is directed at the speaker's preadolescent niece, her American world continues to shatter all around her. His speaker's compassionate tone and measured stanzas temper the rage. From this rage, he shifts his energy into creation myths and origin stories. This is how he restarts, imagining the world as a clean slate.

In the book's final poem, "The Bridge Above the Clouds," his ultimate act of defiance as an angry Asian American man fed up with North American racism is to leave. Armed with "a one-way / flight on Business class from MIA to BCN," Miami to Barcelona, he never looks back. Think of the 20th century's many writer and artist of color expatriates who flourished as artists elsewhere. I wonder how many of us angry Asian Americans would really do this, however fed up we are with American racism.

I think of the speaker leaving on his own terms as a kind of death amid pleasure. There's lots of death in this collection, and the speaker also morbidly imagines his own. Still, I think of this final poem -- which begins with his own elderly father's death, includes some thoughts on suicide as he drives his rented Peugeot through European winding roads to the clouds -- not as a suicide note, but as a poem of necessary endings before beginning anew.

Chinese, Japanese, What Are These?
by Nick Carbo
Pecan Grove Press, 2009
ISBN: 978-1-931247-64-1 $15

 

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thanks for the injection of poetry into our week, barb ;)could you give us a verse or two? pretty please?
Hi Claire, you're very welcome! And yes on the verse. Actually, I'll go ahead and add some links to poems in the post.
Thanks Barbara for the very insightful review. One passage really struck me:"his ultimate act of defiance as an angry Asian American man fed up with North American racism is to leave. Armed with "a one-way / flight on Business class from MIA to BCN," Miami to Barcelona, he never looks back. Think of the 20th century's many writer and artist of color expatriates who flourished as artists elsewhere. I wonder how many of us angry Asian Americans would really do this, however fed up we are with American racism."In light of the recent arrest of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. (one of the very top African American intellectuals/scholars) in his own home, I am doubly convinced that even a Harvard professor I.D. and a state issued license cannot protect your identity, thus, your intellectual and artistic accomplishments, from elements of a racist society. What good is it to continue to live in a country where you have to learn how to be inconspicuous, not walk around alone in certain neighborhoods looking at the pretty houses, not hold hands while walking with a white spouse, not wear certain clothes while going shopping, not confront students for their vaguely racist humor, not drive around in an expensive car? Not too long ago the writer and poet Carlos Bulosan said "It is a crime to be a Filipino in America." And he died in America, poor and hungry. So many same stories from the Manongs, so many stories from the poor Filipino youths in neighborhood gangs. Don't get me wrong, there are also many stories of being successful and living "the American dream" for Filipino Americans. But I need to unlearn how not to be inconspicuous, not to give up my place, not to make the common sense too common.
Hi Nick, I am really glad you like this review. Your book made me think hard, how a poet can still write very beautiful things as pointed commentary on American racism. I've been thinking about the Henry Louis Gates, Jr. arrest, and can't event look at photos of him being led away in handcuffs or his mugshots without getting really very angry. A few things: I am glad you've connected the recent Gates arrest with what I wrote in the review. This gives us a lot to think about regarding our roles (even responsibilities) as artists and academics of color in such a racist USA.Your referencing Bulosan also makes me think of Manong Al Robles (who, fortunately, did not die poor and hungry), and how invested, hopeful, optimistic he was in our American survival and whether or not we could even thrive here.How do we keep up the fight as artists, activists, academics, continue to be able to take care of ourselves, maintain community such that we always have one another's backs when crises happen?
I am heartened by such elegant poetry and community and am anxious to read more; thank you for the writing and review.