Check out this post from Cha editor Tammy Ho Lai-Ming about what she thinks of my poetry. I’m just floored by the comparison she makes and am extremely grateful. I also want you guys to get to know Tammy as I’ve been following her stuff since I found her “Sending You Away” in decomP. She is exactly what a poet should be, in my opinion: Succinct, clear, thoughtful, expressive and powerful.
I’d also suggest checking out “Love and Lust” to get a feel for the new and exciting things happening across the Pacific (and in Tammy’s case, across the Atlantic). Perhaps English is the current Lingua Franca, but let’s not forget the influence of Asian poetry on folks like Pound that touched off what became Modernism.
What we have today, then, owes itself almost entirely to the Japanese tradition, and I think it’s very worthwhile delving deeper into Eastern poetry for more influences, even if it’s only for new ways of looking at things. Many of the mental back flips we see, for instance, in Zach’s, Heather’s and Matvei’s work come from similar neural performances from the Russians. And such perspectives are healthy for the troubled Western brain. As the poem Tammy is about to publish says:
When you look at a tree in a garden
it is easier if you look at all the things that are not a tree.
When you sleep under a blanket
it is important to remember it’s not the blanket that is warm,
but the space between it and your skin.
What it is, in my opinion, is the ability to transform otherness into familiarity, which could be very important for all humans to learn as we grow closer together. I am not advocating a loss of classic Western individualism, which I see as invaluable. But what I see at the heart of Western decay, a disregard for everything but the self, could be turned in on itself through simply identifying the self as distinct but inclusive.
Think about it: Self is essentially a composite of experience and experience is usually the result of interaction. We are each unique and special and entirely ourselves, but we are this way because of everyone we’ve interacted with. It is kind of like a social lineage to match our genetic one. And just imagine if the stock broker who went to college because he spoke with some derelict poet who morned his not making better career decisions had thought about himself this way; had thought of his individual self as everyone else.
Perhaps in such cases the world would be a better place. Perhaps combining Eastern and Western culture into World Culture could take us there. I think a good place to start on this project is to read Eastern poetry, and a great gateway into this is to read the works of Eastern writers working in English like Tammy.
