哀 / Sad
From West: A Translation (Copper Canyon Press, 2023) by Paisley Rekdal. Copyright © 2023 by Paisley Rekdal. Used with the permission of the publisher.
Poems
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有識 / Have Knowledge
Immigration questions for Chinese claiming to be former
US residents, or for Chinese entering the country during the
Chinese Exclusion Act
Have you ridden in a streetcar?
Can you describe the taste of bread?
Where are the joss houses located in the city?
Do Jackson Street and Dupont
run in a circle or a line, what is the fruit
your mother ate before she bore you,
how many letters a year
do you receive from your father?
Of which material is his ancestral hall now built?
2023
傳 / Pass
Brigham Young hoped passing trains
would enliven trade, while Congress
hoped trade would pass polygamy
from existence. Stanford didn’t think the Chinese
could pass muster, then used them to pass up
the Irish, after which he wanted Chinese out,
passed over by law to keep them from passing
for white. The work passed
to Japanese, who were put in camps, then on
to Mexicans, Navajo, Italians, Poles, Greeks, Swedes,
each man passed into and out of
some approximation of American. “We cannot fail
2023
何日/What Day
On this seventh day
of the seventh month, magpies
bridge in a cluster
of black and white
2021