The New Anthology of American Poetry: Vol. III: Postmodernisms 1950-Present

JOHN YAU

417 John Yau Ø bless the man who forgives only himself bless the woman who shoulders the world, bless them all who are nameless and mad, oh bless the man, yes, bless the woman. 2004 Simon noted that “‘Benediction’ is for Allen Ginsberg, in memoriam, April 5, 1997.” JOHN YAU b. 1950 John yau writes poetry that challenges habitual ways of perceiving and communicating . His poems have a brilliant but elusive quality, often giving way to wordplay. They hint at autobiography, social analysis, and ideas without going beyond innuendo. They show no interest in abstract statement or precise description . These are works of shimmering surfaces that imply but don’t explore the depths below. On the one hand, they avoid reducing human beings and material reality to language. On the other hand, they resist the illusion that they can ever go beyond language, that they can absorb reality. They demonstrate the ways that language is both a vital source of meaning and an inevitable obstacle to it. Witty, serious, beautiful, and unsettling, Yau’s poems stretch and breach the borders of poetry, making it subtly new. Yau was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, shortly after his parents emigrated from China. His mother belonged to a prominent Chinese family from Shanghai, and his father was of mixed Chinese and English ancestry. Growing up on Beacon Hill in Boston and then in suburban Brookline, Yau experienced a sense of diasporic “betweenness” as a Chinese American who did not fit comfortably into any mold. He received his B.A. from Bard College in upstate New York and his M.F.A. from Brooklyn College, where he studied with John Ashbery (also included in this anthology). An art critic, editor, and fiction writer as well as a poet, Yau has published many volumes and has received numerous awards and grants. Married, with one child, he is now a professor at the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University. Yau’s poetry was influenced by the surrealists and other experimental groups of the 1920s as well as John Ashbery’s New York school of poets and artists in the Ø John Yau 418 1970s. It bears some relation to that of contemporary Language poets such as Susan Howe, Charles Bernstein, and Amy Gerstler as well as to Asian-American poets such as Theresa Cha, Marilyn Chin, and Li- Young Lee (all included in this anthology). Yet his work is singular as well. Its probing of Chinese-American subjectivity, American identity, and personhood in general through disconnected images, narrative disruptions, parodies of popular culture, language games, visual-arts techniques, and free associational riffs results in texts that are alternatively inspiring, puzzling, anxiety-producing, and amusing. Always a step ahead of the reader, they suggest new ways of thinking, feeling, and communicating in the twenty-first century. further reading Edward Foster. “An Interview with John Yau.” Talisman 5 (1990): 31–50. Christina Mar. “John Yau’s Poetry and the Ethnic/Aesthetic Divide.” In Literary Gestures: The Aesthetic in Asian American Writing, ed. Rocio Davis and Sue-Im Lee, 70–85. Philadelphia : Temple University Press, 2005. John Yau. Borrowed Love Poems. London: Penguin, 2002. — — — —. Forbidden Entries. Santa Rosa, Calif.: Black Sparrow Press, 1996. — — — —. Ing Grish. Philadelphia: Saturnalia Books, 2005. — — — —. Radiant Silhouette: New and Selected Work, 1974–1988. Santa Rosa, Calif.: Black Sparrow Press, 1994. Xiaojing Zhou. “Postmodernism and Subversive Parody: John Yau’s ‘Genghis Chan: Private Eye’ Series.” College Literature 31.1 (Winter 2004): 73–102. Chinese Villanelle I have been with you, and I have thought of you Once the air was dry and drenched with light I was like a lute filling the room with description We watched glum clouds reject their shape We dawdled near a fountain, and listened I have been with you, and I have thought of you Like a river worthy of its gown And like a mountain worthy of its insolence Why am I like a lute left with only description How does one cut an axe handle with an axe? What shall I do to tell you all my thoughts When I have been with you, and thought of you * * * Electric Drills Ø 419 A pelican sits on the dam, while a duck Folds its wings again; the song does not melt I remember you looking at me without description Perhaps a king’s business is never finished, Though “perhaps” implies a different beginning I have been with you...