UPDATE DEC 27, 2011: This year Bao Phi published his first book of poetry, “Sông I Sing.” It is off the chain good. Get it today!
Here is an excerpt of a review from the New York Times:
In this strong and angry work of what he calls refugeography, Bao Phi, who has been a performance poet since 1991, wrestles with immigration, class and race in America at sidewalk level.~~~~~
"Blaog" is a new blog in the Star Tribune's "Your voices" by Bao Phi, an amazing performance artist and poet from Minneapolis. He is also an incredibly kind and generous person who speaks a fierce and lovely truth. Go to this blog and read it!!!!!
A little more about Bao: Bao Phi has been a performance poet since 1991. A two-time Minnesota Grand Slam champion and a National Poetry Slam finalist, Bao Phi has appeared on HBO Presents Russell Simmons Def Poetry, and a poem of his appeared in the 2006 Best American Poetry anthology.
You MUST go read the whole blog, but a couple of excerpts are below:
As a three month old baby, I spent an evening in my mother’s arms at Tan Son Nhat as bombs fell for hours and hours, shaking the dark bomb shelter around us. My family was huddled with many other Viets as the airport was shelled all night long, trying to wait out the bombardment, waiting for our chance to escape.Bao, Thank you for continuing to put your voice into the universe!
With the aid of Lutheran sponsors we tropical people settled in Phillips in South Minneapolis, unprepared for a life of snow and English speakers and hot dish made with hamburger meat and little tater tots on top. When we came as the first wave of Southeast Asian refugees, local papers ran articles about how we kidnapped pets in order to eat them, how Viet gangsters had taken over Coffman Union’s basement and plotted murders over the pool tables and would kill you for looking at one of ‘our women’....
....It’s over 30 years later, and not much has changed. My parents still live in that house, two blocks from the Little Earth projects. People are still saying Asians eat cats and dogs, except now it’s plastered all over billboards for certain wealthy white eateries and they’re winning national advertising awards for their blatant racism...
...Understand that, at this point in my life, I feel more privileged than I ever have. My partner and I bought a small, fixer-upper house in Powderhorn. She and I are not rich but we are not starving, and I have a steady job which I absolutely love...
...One of the insidious benefits of being a person of color raised in Minnesota is to be acutely aware of how race impacts you on several different levels...
...Being an Asian American writer, writing about Asian American issues, is to risk going unread. But maybe that’s not the point. Maybe the point is, we need to exist.
