Attack of the Man-Eating Lotus Blossoms

by Justin Chin

Fiction. Asian American Studies. Gay and Lesbian Studies. As a performance artist, Justin Chin has created eight full-length solo performance works and several shorter works, which have been presented nationally and abroad. ATTACK OF THE MAN-EATING LOTUS BLOSSOMS is a collection of performance art texts, documents, and scripts. These writings collect the author's performance work from 1993-2001. "Chin is one of the few national-caliber slam poets who succeed with material that's gut-wrenchingly personal and at the same time loaded with satire and commentary on pop culture"--SF Bay Guardian.

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Born in Malaysia, raised & educated in Singapore, shipped to the U.S. by way of Hawaii, and lived in San Francisco. Author of 3 books of poetry, all published by Manic D Press: Bite Hard (1997); Harmless Medicine (2001), a finalist in the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association Awards; and, Gutted (2006), which received the 2007 Thom Gunn Award for Poetry by the Publishing Triangle. Squeezed in between these were 2 non-fictions: Mongrel: Essays, Diatribes & Pranks (St. Martins, 1999), and the ur-memoir, Burden of Ashes (Alyson Publications, 2002).


In the nineties, also led a double life as performance artist: created and presented seven full-length solo works here, there and where ever. Packed up those cookies in 2002, (with occasional relapses) and the documents, scripts, and what-heck from that period was published in Attack of the Man-Eating Lotus Blossoms (Suspect Thoughts Press, 2005). Continues to produce text/visual Book-based performance work. Book 2 is an on-going project where discarded or abandoned books found on the streets & other public places are remade, remodeled, & reworked into artists books.

Reviews

[Hank · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read the end of "Born." It's poetry but spoken in a natural voice. When these performance pieces were done in the 90s Chin always stirred controversy. He's a powerful writer.