In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • 5,000 Translations, and: Manifesto of Shame
  • Ching-In Chen (bio)

5,000 TRANSLATIONS

last call at the money-saving bar      story about a darter
in the Vegas night club         so green tired I bit the Berlin beer         Two lies
already see violet from night                        a martyr
sable and curls silver                                     A goldeye mother did not die
Three fictions fifteen others shot in dahlia heat     Jimmy Carter
to preside against the murderous time      True      I claimed the ones who cried
Who hit lonely lightning     yellow stem fire pretending smarter
to unclaim     Who easy to hold the tent large for public fry
When I see the fruits of this page please not not that abandoned monster
because as soon as they see others grow     they count the clock chime clock . . .
from Milwaukee     I asked the wasted question does this tent really hold my
heat     Who can write this poem and counting which of my skin absorb this father and my crime [End Page 391]

MANIFESTO OF SHAME

  1. 1. I refuse you. Your blank and arrogant face. Your armor (mis-read your light body). Your dare and follow-through. Disgraceful pain, compressed bullet.

  2. 2. Consider one who won’t be named. Image shut before become ghost. Ghost before life-eater. Life-eating produce Facebook status. Headline cross passageway—tiny handheld frame boards plane to USA. No image, no body count.

  3. 3. Trigger warning: at least one year earlier, C tells me of an uncle (white, my emphasis) she has lost. 1991 University of Iowa shooting. A graduate student (Chinese) shoots C’s uncle and the other dissertation committee members (all white), another graduate student (Chinese), the university’s grievance officer (white) and Miya (Filipina), a temporary student employee paralyzed from the neck down. Himself. Jo Ann Beard’s essay surfaces in the 1997 Best American Essays. The university’s composition program where I am enrolled teaches this essay in the year when C confesses about the killings. Two films, two non-fiction books. I watch Meryl Streep play a wealthy donor (white, obviously) fascinated by culture (Chinese?) who tries to connect with the on-screen shooter. I watch the documentary film about the rest of Miya’s life, the ostensible lone survivor become disability advocate. Two films with C—hold her 14 years later. On the plane hearing about this latest outbreak, I call because she has said that mass shootings trigger. No one answers.

  4. 4. I do not belong to this chorus. I sit in the grooves of my fractures, put misshapen gun on table. Nobody sees what take shape in room, what force drive into place. Demanding coherence a violent act.

  5. 5. I do not want their bones or their bodies. Seung-Hui Cho. Kimveer Gill. One L. Goh. Biswanath Halder. James Jay Lee. Wayne Lo. Gang Lu. Nidal Malik Hasan. Phu Cuong Ta. Jiverly Antares Wong.

  6. 6. Not elegy, but fear song. Not praise poem, but a melody of discomfort. What agent causes itchy skin not rest. Pages and pages of small minutes belong to who kill, who monster march forward in time, illegible.

  7. 7. To read the shooter (stabber) not as he desired (white, elite) in all shame, but: [End Page 392] Fierce article summarize (our community’s) investment in misogylinity, Asian American men’s reaction to emasculation. To glorify sexual conquest. To expect access. 31 likes, 22 shares.

    I feel useful, attached to my social media. Vigilant against erroneous headlines.

  8. 8. I name the ones (some footnotes and predecessors, some spotlights and terrors, deranged enigmas). I am not a victim, but I feel pain.

  9. 9. From Murderpedia:      Ryan Clark (22) / Emily Hilscher (19) / Minal Panchal (26) / G. V. Loganathan (53) / Jarrett Lane (22) / Brian Bluhm (25) / Matthew Gwaltney (24) / Jeremy Herbstritt (27) / Partahi Lumbantoruan (34) / Daniel O’Neil (22) / Juan Ortiz (26) / Julia Pryde (23) / Waleed Shaalan (32) / Jamie Bishop (35) / Lauren McCain (20) / Michael Pohle Jr. (23) / Maxine Turner (22) / Nicole White (20) / Liviu Librescu (76) / Jocelyne Couture-Nowak (49) / Ross Alameddine (20) / Austin Cloyd (18) / Daniel Perez Cueva (21) / Caitlin Hammaren (19) / Rachael Hill (18) / Matthew La Porte (20) / Henry Lee (20) / Erin Peterson (18) / Mary Karen Read (19) / Reema Samaha (18) / Leslie Sherman (20...

pdf

Share