And I'm going to shift gears and read some newer work.
Thanks.
So as Aria mentioned, so I found my mother's English language
workbook from the '90s when she first came to the US and her
notebook and her own notes as well.
So I've been playing around and trying
to subvert and just experiment with the forms found
in those books.
And also just thinking of my own relationship
to English and Vietnamese like language
as a site of connection and dislocation.
So I'm going to read a poem about discovering that workbook,
and I wanted to read some as well.
I have slides just because there are visual elements so I just
wanted you all to see some of it.
And also, I'm a visual person.
Discovering my mother's English language workbook from
the '90s titled Hooray for English.
[LAUGHTER]
On the cover, a monkey steers a rocket ship.
Inside, a blonde astronaut smiles,
waved into space by an Asian family
Who I imagined lassoing the curve of the moon,
the hard C of constellation.
I watched my mother's path between past and future tense,
waiting for her handwriting to soar, to arrive fully
formed and fluent.
Outside these pages, I struggled through years
of basic Vietnamese.
My parents threatened me with language classes,
but I was never worried.
The Viet church far, their work hours long.
Those two springs my father drove me to CCD,
He stayed in the car while I faked prayers and made
the sign of the cross.
He read the papers with arms stretched wide,
Trying to catch all the words, seat fully reclined.
Newsprint lettering his dreams.
After mass, I tapped his window gently,
afraid to pull him back into this world.
The sky poured forth the alphabet.
We spelled our futures on the fogged windshield.
Inside, on a dark shelf, a different life
quivered in my mother's throat.
Let's see if this works.