Chinese Silence No. 80, for David Gilmour

I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love. Unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese, or women.

--David Gilmour

I can’t really give you the tour.  I’ve just moved, it’s a mess, and I just got out of bed, and the books here, well, they’re so sophisticated you probably wouldn’t understand them, and…

Okay, I’ll be honest.  It’s because you’re Chinese.

I don’t have anything against Chinese people.  I just don’t love them.  When I was given this job I said I would only teach the people that I truly, truly love.  Unfortunately, none of those happen to be Chinese. 

Usually at the beginning of the semester a hand shoots up and someone asks why there aren’t any Chinese people in the course.  I say I don’t love Chinese enough to teach them, if you want Chinese go down the street to Lee’s Garden.

Chekhov, of course, was not Chinese.  He had a loud Western laugh, so they would never let him into a Chinese restaurant.  Everyone who ever met Chekhov somehow became a little less Chinese.

I’m a natural teacher.  What I teach is guys, real guy-guys.  Heterosexual, not Chinese.

I read this book about China once.  There were men with long fingernails stroking tiny bound feet.  I know the difference between pornography and great literature.  All my favorite parts are underlined.

I teach only the best.  What happens with great literature is that the Chinese in the shadows keep moving around.  Stop that.  What’s intolerable is Chinese who give up all their secrets, like Fu Manchu.  I’ve watched him a hundred times and there’s nothing new in him. 

The Tang of Silence

Last week, the Academy of American Poets' Poem-A-Day posted Bruce Cohen's "Tang," which included the following note from the author:  

Lately I have been worried and depressed over the fact that my poetic voice was becoming stale, my persona and language too familiar, and quite simply, I was bored with myself.  In order to shake myself out of my funk I started reading some translations of the more obscure ancient Chinese poets to trigger or shock myself into some alien sensibility; paradoxically, I aspired to be un-American while remaining nostalgic...

Of course, Cohen's talk of China as an "alien" and "un-American" culture made him a perfect subject for my series of Chinese Silences. So here's my response to his poem.


Chinese Silence No. 77
after Bruce Cohen, "Tang"

If I do not witness these poets turning Chinese, who will?

I quiet myself:
I will not think

Of myself as an obscure Poet from the Alien East,
Ancient yellow monster
Astronauts found orbiting a silent planet
That became a quaint modern poetry staple,

The excluded alien's bitter tears on the voyage out,
Anything differing in nature or character to the point of incompatibility.

Isn't it a very poetic moment when each of us
Recognizes we are Chinese,
That we're shocking, un-American perhaps,
& need translation to make us valid,

Sidekicks on the cutting-room floor,
Cracked hands digging for buried ore,
Born in the aftermath of earthquake's wrack,

Or watching your poems grow
Nostalgic about us
That we discover it is
Impossible
To ever become
One hundred percent American?

I am bored with you right now, in this poem.

My mind's not as silent as it used to be either.
There is all this ching-chong chatter.

None of us can shake our Chinese lives.

I mean American: I meant fake:

Lately I have been worried and depressed over the fact that my poetic voice was becoming stale, my persona and language too familiar, and, quite simply, I was bored with myself. In order to shake myself out of my funk I started reading some translations of the more obscure ancient Chinese poets to trigger or shock myself into some alien sensibility: paradoxically, I aspired to be un-American while remaining nostalgic - See more at: https://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23614#sthash.L3BGalGi.dpuf

Lately I have been worried and depressed over the fact that my poetic voice was becoming stale, my persona and language too familiar, and, quite simply, I was bored with myself. In order to shake myself out of my funk I started reading some translations of the more obscure ancient Chinese poets to trigger or shock myself into some alien sensibility: paradoxically, I aspired to be un-American while remaining nostalgic - See more at: https://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23614#sthash.L3BGalGi.dpuf

Lately I have been worried and depressed over the fact that my poetic voice was becoming stale, my persona and language too familiar, and, quite simply, I was bored with myself. In order to shake myself out of my funk I started reading some translations of the more obscure ancient Chinese poets to trigger or shock myself into some alien sensibility: paradoxically, I aspired to be un-American while remaining nostalgic - See more at: https://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23614#sthash.L3BGalGi.d

Lately I have been worried and depressed over the fact that my poetic voice was becoming stale, my persona and language too familiar, and, quite simply, I was bored with myself. In order to shake myself out of my funk I started reading some translations of the more obscure ancient Chinese poets to trigger or shock myself into some alien sensibility: paradoxically, I aspired to be un-American while remaining nostalgic - See more at: https://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23614#sthash.L3BGalGi.dpuf

Lately I have been worried and depressed over the fact that my poetic voice was becoming stale, my persona and language too familiar, and, quite simply, I was bored with myself. In order to shake myself out of my funk I started reading some translations of the more obscure ancient Chinese poets to trigger or shock myself into some alien sensibility: paradoxically, I aspired to be un-American while remaining nostalgic - See more at: https://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/23614#sthash.L3BGalGi.dpuf