Poets From The United States

"Woman walks into a warzone and has warriors cowering at her feet."

"Don't talk about my flavor unless you know that my flavor is insurrection it is rebellion, resistance."

"There's always more to write."

"I use my words to raise the alarm on the conflicts of our time...in the hopes that someone might hear something that moves them."

"The right to free speech./Jeanne Kirkpatrick walks out when students hiss./She has the right to free speech/any time/anywhere/because she defends/U.S. imperialism./But Merle Woo?/Merle Woo gets fired/from the classroom./She speaks about democracy./For students, staff and faculty. Against censorship./For a Third World College. Against cultural genocide./For lesbians and gays. Against heterosexism./For the possibility of all our voices,/in all languages, singing out."

"In the last few years, I have realized the value of Homework: I have studied the history of our people in this country. I cannot tell you how proud I am to be a Chinese/Korean American Woman. We have such a proud heritage, such a courageous tradition. I want to tell everyone about that, all the particulars that are left out in the schools. And the full awareness of being a woman makes me want to sing."

"Merle Woo wrote a letter to her mother, stating her pride in being a Chinese-Korean-American woman: "We have such a proud heritage, such a courageous tradition.""

"I get so tired of being the instant resource for information on Asian American women. Being the token representative, going from class to class, group to group, bleeding for white women so they can have an easy answer and then-and this is what really gets to me-they usually leave to never continue their education about us on their own."

"And this is when the pain of the struggle hits home. How many white women have taken on the responsibility to educate themselves about Third World people, their history, their culture? How many white women really think about the stereotypes they retain as truth about women of color?"

"To the racist white female professor who says, "If I have to watch everything I say I wouldn't say anything," I want to say, "Then get out of teaching.""

"Yellow Feminist means being a core for change, and that core means having the belief in our potential as human beings. I will work with anyone, support anyone, who shares my sensibility, my objectives."

"But there are barriers to unity: white women who are racist, and Asian American men who are sexist. My very being declares that those two groups do not share my complete sensibility. I would be fragmented, mutilated, if I did not fight against racism and sexism together."

"To the white female poet who says, "Well, frankly, I believe that politics and poetry don't necessarily have to go together," I say, "Your little taste of white privilege has deluded you into thinking that you don't have to fight against sexism in this society. You are talking to me from your own isolation and your own racism. If you feel that you don't have to fight for me, that you don't have to speak out against capitalism, the exploitation of human and natural resources, then you in your silence, your inability to make connections, are siding with a system that will eventually get you, after it has gotten me. And if you think that's not a political stance, you're more than simply deluded, you're crazy!" This is the same white voice that says, "I am writing about and looking for themes that are 'universal."" Well, most of the time when "universal" is used, it is just a euphemism for "white:" white themes, white significance, white culture. And denying minority groups their rightful place and time in US history is simply racist."

"Today, I am satisfied to call myself either an Asian American Feminist or Yellow Feminist. The two terms are inseparable because race and sex are an integral part of me. This means that I am working with others to realize pride in culture and women and heritage (the heritage that is the exploited yellow immigrant: Daddy and you). Being a Yellow Feminist means being a community activist and a humanist. It does not mean "separatism," either by cutting myself off from non-Asians or men. It does not mean retaining the same structure and substituting more women in positions of control."

"When you distort what I say, like thinking I am against all "Caucasians" or that I am ashamed of Dad, then I feel anger and more frustration and want to slash out, not at you, but at those external forces which keep us apart. What deepens the chasms between us are our different reactions to those forces. Yours has been one of silence, self-denial, self-effacement; you believing it is your fault that you never fully experienced self-pride and freedom of choice. But listen, Ma, only with a deliberate consciousness is my reaction different from yours."

"We no longer can afford to stand back and watch while an insatiable elite ravages and devours resources that are enough for all of us. The obstacles are so huge and overwhelming that often I do become cynical and want to give up. And if I were struggling alone, I know I would never even attempt to put into action what I believe in my heart, that (and this is primarily because of you, Ma) Yellow Women are strong and have the potential to be powerful and effective leaders."

"Right now, my techniques are education and writing."

"Do you see your repressed anger manifested in me? What doors would groan wide open if you heard my words with complete understanding? Are you afraid that your daughter is breaking out of our shackles, and into total anarchy? That your daughter has turned into a crazy woman who advocates not only equality for Third World people, for women, but for gays as well? Please don't shudder, Ma, when I speak of homosexuality. Until we can all present ourselves to the world in our completeness, as fully and beautifully as we see ourselves naked in our bedrooms, we are not free."

"Try to understand that our distrust is from experience, and that our distrust is powerless. Racism is an essential part of the status quo, powerful, and continues to keep us down. It is a rule taught to all of us from birth. Is it no wonder that we fear there are no exceptions?""

"I feel even more deeply hurt when I realize how many people, how so many people, because of racism and sexism, fail to see what power we sacrifice by not joining hands."

"There’s a stigma around caring for yourself. Unless it’s attached to capitalism, then it’s okay. You can pay $200 for a facial, and then you’re taking care of yourself. But if you’re caring for yourself with something as deep as sleep, which is one of our most ancient and primal needs, if you’re doing that in public, caring for your body, that’s shameful. I tie that back to capitalism and to white supremacy and these notions around not seeing humans as divine and not seeing our bodies as belonging to us."

"My rest as a Black woman in America suffering from generational exhaustion and racial trauma always was a political refusal and social justice uprising within my body."

"This is about more than naps. It is not about fluffy pillows, expensive sheets, silk sleep masks or any other external, frivolous, consumerist gimmick. It is about a deep unraveling from white supremacy and capitalism. These two systems are violent and evil. History tells us this and our present living shows this. Rest pushes back back and disrupts a system that views human bodies as a tool for production and labor. It is a counter narrative. We know that we are not machines. We are divine."

"This book of 700 close-printed pages is remarkable for its range of erudition covering the ancient religiophilosophical thought and some aspects of the art of the diverse cultures from Greece through the Near East to Persia and India. It is the fruit of some 30 years of research. But is is also remarkable for many misrepresentations, some egregious errors of fact and, consequently, injudicious conclusions.... McEvilley himself, as has been demonstrated in the preceding pages, shows repeated willfulness in (mis-)representing and (mis-)handling of the evidence. Nonetheless, this erudite book is worth consulting provided the reader can spot the author’s facile assumptions, careless remarks, sweeping generalizations and unwarranted judgments."

"Von Soden observes that “since the discovery of the Indus civilization … it has been almost universally accepted that the Sumerians immigrated from the east.” The immigrants are regarded as having arrived in lower Mesopotamia either at the beginning of the Ubaid period (c. 5000 B.C.) or at the beginning of the Uruk period (perhaps c. 3500 B.C., but perhaps as late as 3250). In either case, the Sumerians seem to have fitted easily into an advanced Chalcolithic culture where writing was already in the early stages of development. Therefore, the implication is that they must have been from another advanced culture, and that points to the East. Bottero agrees that “the Sumerians must have arrived in Mesopotamia during the fourth millennium, apparently from the southeast.” Von Soden further observes that “this immigration could have succeeded entirely by land if the Sumerians immigrated from somewhere in northern India,” and refers suggestively to “the westward migration of the Sumerian groups, whose language may have been related to the Dravidian languages of India.”"

"This is a stimulating book. But... it suffers from assuming the late but generally accepted in Western academic circles dating of the Ṛgveda, as well as McEvilley’s lack of a specialist’s knowledge of the Ṛgveda and early Indian thought. ...In general, McEvilley sees undue Ancient Mesopotamian and to a lesser extent Ancient Egyptian influence behind the development of Indus Valley civilization and in the specifics of Vedic and later Indian literature, which tendency is so exaggerated that it comes across as an unpleasant prejudice."

"Still, it would be an equally egregious mistake to conclude that India lacks a distinctive and world-important character of its own. Nothing, it seems, comes out of nothing, and no culture is born by parthenogenesis. Ancient Greek culture has had at least as much input from the same sources without being denied its own “miraculous” selfhood."

"Romila Thapar, an Indian historian... is reviled by some Indian scholars for her acquiescence to many western points of view."

"“Still, modern western attitudes towards Plotinus have not been shaped by the widespread acknowledgment of the extraordinary similarity of his teachings to doctrines taught in India in his day; but by the role he unwittingly played after his death as a formative influence on Christian theology. Translations of his work may have a churchy kind of ring. The view of Plotinus as a kind of proto-Christian may express, at least in part, a dread of finding possible Indian origins for the texts whose influence was to contribute to shaping the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Cusa, Meister Eckhardt, and many later western thinkers. So it is not only that “to admit 'oriental influences' on [Plotinus] was tantamount to besmirching his good name,” but even more it would also besmirch that whole aspect of the western tradition that flowed from him. If Plotinus had passed massive Asian influence into the western tradition, there would be little point to calling it western anymore.”"

"Thomas McEvilley has explained the likely Indian origins of some aspects of Greek thought. For instance, he says the Western intellectuals' cover-up of the likely Indian origins of Plotinus protects Western identity and historicity: 'Translations of his work may have a churchy kind of ring. The view of Plotinus as a kind of proto-Christian theologian may express, at least in part, a dread of finding possible Indian origins for the texts whose influence was to contribute to shaping the thought of Thomas Aquinas, Nicolas of Cusa, Meister Eckhart, and many later Western thinkers. So it is not only that "to admit oriental influences on [Plotinus] was tantamount to besmirching his good name," but even more, it would also besmirch that whole aspect of the Western tradition that flowed from him. If Plotinus had passed massive Asian influence into the Western tradition, there would be little point to calling it Western tradition' ."

"I never heard them over their juleps express a philosophy of life, and if I had it would have been incomprehensible to me, but a philosophy was implicit in all their thoughts and actions. It probably made the Southern pattern. Perhaps it is all contained in a remark of Father's when he was thinking aloud one night and I sat at his feet eavesdropping eagerly: "I guess a man's job is to make the world a better place to live in, so far as he is able – always remembering the results will be infinitesimal – and to attend to his own soul." (Ch. 7)"

"Only one thing never changes – the human heart. Revolutions and ideologies may lacerate it, even break it, but they cannot change its essence. After Fascism and Communism and Capitalism and Socialism are over and forgotten as completely as slavery and the old South, that same headstrong human heart will be clamoring for the old things it wept for in Eden – love and a chance to be noble, laughter and a chance to adore something, someone, somewhere. (Ch. 3)"

"One night Jakie Smith rushed into my room with the sudden illumination: "I know what it is! The law is common sense plus clear English!" I've never heard a better definition of what the law should be and isn't. (Ch. 11)"

"Delta girls are born dancing and never stop, which is as it should be, for surely it is the finest form of human amusement except tennis and talking. (Ch. 12)"

"Our woods are not made for walking because the vines and bushes are too rampant and the rattlesnakes too much at home. But the high levee is perfect for a stroll, which you can extend, if so minded, a hundred miles in either direction. (Ch. 12, on Greenville, Mississippi)"

"Whenever you are just about to decide that Americans are selfish, unpatriotic, and unintelligent, they always prove themselves the most liberal and lovable people in the world. You simply can't stay disgusted with them. What a pity they are not disciplined enough to survive! (Ch. 20)"

"What I wrote seemed to me more essentially myself than anything I did or said. It often gushed up almost involuntarily like automatic writing, and the difficulty lay in keeping the hot gush continuous and unselfconscious while at the same time directing it with cold intellect into form. I never could write in cold blood. The results were intensely personal, whatever their other defects. (Ch. 12, on writing poetry)"

"That short period of my life spent in the line is the only one I remember step by step – as if it moved sub specie aeternitatis. Not that I enjoyed it; I hated it. Not that I was fitted for it by temperament or ability, I was desperately unfitted; but it, somehow, had meaning, and daily life hasn't: it was part of a common endeavor, and daily life is isolated and lonely. (Ch. 17, on his service on the Western Front in World War I)"

"Honor and honesty, compassion and truth are good even if they kill you, for they alone give life its dignity and worth. (Ch. 24)"

"Always that same old story— Father Time and Mother Earth, A marriage on the rocks."

"Since it had never truly fit, why wear The shoe of prose? In verse the feet went bare."

"I consider myself a Buddhist practitioner, but still a beginner, even though I’ve been meditating on and off for many years now. When I was growing up, no one in my household was religious. I’d always been curious about religion, probably because it was bound up for me with questions about how to live as a person when you’re granted such a brief stretch of time. I remember picking up a Buddhist book during my senior year of high school, when it was dawning on me that I would soon experience a new level of autonomy."

"Reading is migratory, an act of transport, from one life to another, one mind to another. Just like geographic travel, reading involves estrangement that comes with the process of dislocating from a familiar context. I gather energy from this kind of movement, this estranging and unsettling, and I welcome it precisely because it’s conducive to examination, interrogation, reordering. Travel, imaginative or physical, can sharpen perception and force a measuring of distance and difference."

"Speaking and writing in English carried with it the anxiety of being betrayed by one’s usage mistakes and lack of fluency; this was no doubt reinforced by the linking of academic success to facility with speech and writing. At the same time that I began learning English, my Mandarin slowed in development, because I wasn’t using it outside of the domestic sphere. To this day, even though I enrolled in a year of intensive Mandarin study in college, my Mandarin is quite stunted. I’ve lost most of the ability to read and write in it, sadly."

"I try to distance myself from systems of literary production and strains of thought that place primacy on publishing and publishing quickly. Ironically, one way to keep myself going is to surrender completely to the fear that I won’t write again, and try to access some recessed zone where any need or ambition to write poems, or to write for others’ eyes, falls away. Once I’ve been emptied of those needs, I find I can allow myself to be filled once more. Reading invigorating work, putting myself in the presence of formidable voices and minds, or submerging myself in slow films usually helps, too."

"I gravitate toward language that radiates a certain energy for me."

"My initial impulse is to say that the poems aren’t “about” me, but that response plays into the faulty assumption that poems whose primary aim might be self-disclosure or testimony are somehow less aesthetically rigorous or energizing. I don’t buy that, really. At the same time, the “I” in these poems, while they might share autobiographical details with the person that wrote them, aren’t “about” me insofar as the speakers are fashioned, dramatized, contextually bound. I invoke them and write into them to better serve the poems and their modes, registers, and textures. Many of the poems take up self-interrogation, but I’m not interested in getting the plot details exactly right. The self is a fiction."

"I’m interested in teasing out the moral complications in travel, but I’m not claiming any moral authority on the subject. Traveling, and the estrangement that comes with it — both physical and mental — can be deeply meaningful in many regards. That’s certainly been true for me. Being unsettled and departing from the familiar encourages a certain kind of attention and awakening of curiosity that helps us reach outside of our own skins, and in doing so, makes us consider not only what is unfamiliar to us in our surroundings, but what is unfamiliar to us in ourselves."

"Buddhist philosophy made so much sense to me when I encountered it. It also upended so much of my thinking — about the self, about suffering, about the mental barriers I’d drawn up my whole life. I can’t understate the freedom that comes — at any age, but especially at that young age — with understanding there is no need to chase after anything, that one innately contains a vast understanding and wisdom. The freedom and balm of knowing that the root of so much suffering is also an illusion: You are not separate from any other thing."

"You can’t lead bunny lives and write tiger poetry."