Asian girls have that thing going on, is what the Internet search of Yellow Fever tells me, but no surprises there, because have you looked into our eyes, a feline power magnified by a million, as you think about tales of the Orient, but oh, shut up about the spices, the dumplings, the temples, oh shut up, white boy who wants a lady on the streets but a freak in the bedroom, and I’ll tell you something: I’m a freak everywhere from elevators to family gatherings, and it’s a lot of fun—kawaii porn, or that fantasy of an innocent face, oh, but that body,
Read "Triple Sonnet, Because You’ve Got That Thing Going On," a poem from Dorothy Chan's Revenge of the Asian Woman featured in Diode Poetry Journal 12.1 and check out Dorothy's latest interview with CD Davidson-Hiers in Tallahassee Democrat.
From the latest interview in Tallahassee Democrat:
[Tallahassee Democrat]: Even with how much food brings us together, the speaker talks to people in the poems who misconstrue food or malign it. What’s going on when that happens?
[Dorothy Chan]: That’s where sexuality comes into play because, in some of the poems, the Chinese-American is talking about white boys that she’s had flings with and how they misinterpret food.
Maybe they don’t know how to use chopsticks, maybe they’re mixed up between what’s a dumpling and what’s a bun at the dim sum table. And sure, that presents a lot of cultural difference, but what I think is being pointed out is not necessarily the mistake, but more of the unwillingness to learn.
Read on at Tallahassee Democrat.
“Who doesn’t think kissing is the greatest thing / in the world other than eating?” Revenge of the Asian Woman comes to life on a sexed-up soap opera / B-movie platter where passion and food and fantasy reign supreme: excess in the form of full odes and triple sonnets with towers of macarons and carnival desserts and Hong Kong street food on a skewer—and make it a double. The East Asian girl boss takes her revenge on those who have fetishized her, looking great in gold booty shorts, while recounting her parents’ love story, the Chinese-American immigrant dream, her Chinese zodiac fate, and her own sexual awakening. She conquers all, moving through this universe of two-headed fantasies, aggressive foreheads, and magical girl transformation sequences, having her cake and eating it too—“Oh, cut that cake again.”
