Asian American Poetry: THE NEXT GENERATION

by Marilyn Chin

This book is the first in English to consider women's movements and feminist discourses in twentieth-century Taiwan. Doris T. Chang examines the way in which Taiwanese women in the twentieth century selectively appropriated Western feminist theories to meet their needs in a modernizing Confucian culture. She illustrates the rise and fall of women's movements against the historical backdrop of the island's contested national identities, first vis-à-vis imperial Japan (1895-1945) and later with postwar China (1945-2000).

 

In particular, during periods of soft authoritarianism in the Japanese colonial era and late twentieth century, autonomous women's movements emerged and operated within the political perimeters set by the authoritarian regimes. Women strove to replace the "Good Wife, Wise Mother" ideal with an individualist feminism that meshed social, political, and economic gender equity with the prevailing Confucian family ideology. However, during periods of hard authoritarianism from the 1930s to the 1960s, the autonomous movements collapsed.

 

The particular brand of Taiwanese feminism developed from numerous outside influences, including interactions among an East Asian sociopolitical milieu, various strands of Western feminism, and Marxist-Leninist women's liberation programs in Soviet Russia. Chinese communism appears not to have played a significant role, due to the Chinese Nationalists' restriction of communication with the mainland during their rule on post-World War II Taiwan.

 

Notably, this study compares the perspectives of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, whose husband led as the president of the Republic of China on Taiwan from 1949 to 1975, and Hsiu-lien Annette Lu, Taiwan's vice president from 2000 to 2008. Delving into period sources such as the highly influential feminist monthly magazine Awakening as well as interviews with feminist leaders, Chang provides a comprehensive historical and cross-cultural analysis of the struggle for gender equality in Taiwan.

Genres: Poetry, Asian American

232 pages, Hardcover

First published May 24, 2004

About the author

Marilyn Chin is an award-winning poet and the author of Revenge of the Mooncake Vixen, Rhapsody in Plain Yellow, The Phoenix Gone, the Terrace Empty and Dwarf Bamboo. Her writing has appeared in The Norton Anthology of Modern and Contemporary Poetry.

She was born in Hong Kong and raised in Portland, Oregon. Her books have become Asian American classics and are taught in classrooms internationally. Marilyn Chin has read her poetry at the Library of Congress. She was interviewed by Bill Moyers’ and featured in his PBS series The Language of Life and in PBS Poetry Everywhere.

Reviews

[Barbara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just taught out of this anthology this week for my Poets of Color course. I don't think it's the most useful, even if we are to focus on younger or "emerging" Asian American poets, because it's historically thin and lacking in ethnic and aesthetic diversity.

Regarding the alleged shift away from what the editor calls the "recognizable Asian American voice," I wonder more and more whether it's even important or desirable to do this. While I agree that younger poets are finding new ways of telling stories about family, culture, homeland, language, et al, I don't know that the voices included here are so radically different from the previous, "first generation" of poets such as Li-Young Lee. Even with the more "experimental" poets, such as Cathy Park Hong, the way she eroticizes the act of speech reminds me of Theresa Hak-Kyung Cha's acute attention to the the act of speaking, the numerous specific body parts and their corresponding actions (movements) involved in the act of speaking in DICTEE.

I appreciate Marilyn Chin's foreword to this volume, and her figurative passing of the torch to a younger generation of poets. I appreciate her assessment of Mong-Lan's use of page as canvas and line as brush stroke. I also appreciate Chin's frankness as she indicts herself for her "mega Chinese food" tropes in her own past writing. I agree with Timothy Yu's review of this anthology (this review appears in the Chicago Review), in that the best of the work included here is where the introspective lyric I is still very much rooted in the outside world, as is the case with Nick Carbo's "Ang Tunay na Lalaki" poems.

My preferred Asian American anthology for teaching is still Walter Lew's PREMONITIONS, which does not marginalize the "experimental," but I believe gives it proper recognition; this is important because, as one of my students pointed out, "experimental" poetics can be the most political given the interrogation of conventions of language and form which takes place during the poetic experiment. This interrogation is necessary if we consider how high the stakes are in our writing, into and against the current literary canon and its corresponding cultural and social values.

[ryo narasaki · Rating 3 out of 5]

merely very lovely. tim yu wrote an interesting critique of this book in the chicago review (i think that was the publication... i forget...)

[Lyra Montoya · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the poems were really impressive to me, while others didn't move me the same way. I suppose that's going to be the nature in any anthology with different authors and their different senses of language and poetics.

This collection is from 2004, and so it reads very strongly as a POST 9/11 book in how the authors address their hyphened - americanness. For a collection claiming to be unconventional in its use of the medium and departure from older versions of common Asian american poetics, most of the poems fell into a fairly conventional form, and there were a lot of food metaphors made throughout the collection. Tina Chang's Fish Story used that established metaphorical device quite well, and more compellingly than the other similar appearances in my eyes. The use and invocation of 'melting pot' language in the final stanza was quite satisfying. Ants also appeared a lot. Insects and ants kept appearing. Ants the word infest just as well as the insect themselves. I see the tie in that "oh asians are so collective, there fore they're like this other not human social animal!" but it was interesting to see that emerge. There are also ties to common fascist language around likening whatever group is labeled alterior to insects, though that insect linkage is often specifically towards cockroaches.

Even if I didn't like all of the poems and the authors it was interesting to read this book as a snapshot into early 2000s identities around asian americanness.

[Drew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The forward to this book is written is by the talented Marilyn Chin. In addition, the book exposed me to some very talented Asian-American poets. I originally found this in a library but I had to get my own copy!

[Craig Werner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Question for Hai. Is there a better compilation available?

[Stephen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange introduction, but otherwise useful new anthology which lesser known poets.