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Bao Phi

~ Vietnamese American spoken word artist, writer and community activist

Bao Phi

More on Douglas Kearney

Song I Sing

2011

more on:

David Mura, Douglas Kearney, Jeff Chang, Li-Young Lee, Sông I Sing, Yen Le Espiritu

Sông I Sing

Cover art by Binh Danh

Now Available

→ Designed, published and available for purchase via Coffee House Press.

A rhapsodic exploration of immigration, race, and class by Vietnamese American phenom and National Poetry Slam star Bao Phi.

Dynamic and eye-opening, this debut by a National Poetry Slam finalist critiques an America sleepwalking through its days and explores the contradictions of race and class in America.

Excerpt

From “Prince Among Men”

When it feels like no one
lets you live
at your own volume
You sing.

Keep Reading →

The Godzilla Sestina

2011

more on:

Douglas Kearney

A sestina is an Italian poetic form consisting of six stanzas with six lines each plus a three line envoi at the end. The last word of each sentence, the teleutons, are repeated in a specific order, and the envoi contains all six teleutons in a specific order. The format is abcdef, faebdc, cfdabe, ecbfad, deacfb, bdfeca, envoi: be dc fa. In other words, sestinas are a pain in the ass.

I wrote my first sestinas in college and hoped I would never have to write another one again. But Doug challenged me to write one from the perspective of Godzilla, and here it is. You should read his (from the perspective of King Kong), it’s dope. Anyway, I thought I would focus on how Godzilla was originally created by the Japanese as a horrific symbol of nuclear holocaust. Hence the references to Fat Man, Little Boy, the Enola Gay, etc. My teleutons for the poem are: a – create b – tail/tale/tell/told c – here/hear d – fireballs e – listen/listen f- drop

Under the ocean where I was created
in a womb of dancing atoms, a tectonic tale
is breaking the skin of sea floor. Dreams burn here:
lava flows underwater like bleeding fireballs,
sunless sleep disturbed as they listened
for the sound of the nightmares they dropped.

Fat Man and the Little Boy drop,
like two suns tumbling, sent to destroy creation,
no one will be left alive to listen
for the lessons we need to learn from this tale,
just a skyline made of a blossoming fireball
and a symphony of silenced screams horrible beyond hearing.

So I’m born, a radiating thunder lizard, here
to crush American Dreams as my footfalls drop
like apocalypse, and from my lips a chorus of fireballs
razes all that you have created
like runaway rays of sun, my tail
too large to fit in your streets, listen

to see if your superheroes will sing if no one listens,
their words so tired that no one hears,
flag colored costumes useless in this tale.
Look at the sky for God, for an answer, to see if black rain drops,
to see this towering monster created
by the heat of a million rabid fireballs

unleashed on a people turned to ash by the fire, balled
fists and screams evaporated while history listens.
I loom, people scramble in my jagged eclipse, the penumbra I created
is shaped like the ghost of the Enola Gay flying across the moon. Here,
I will illuminate your whispered crimes as the indigo of night drops
before your story is fully told.

Children will sleep trembling under my tail,
the threat of my story like a guillotine of fireballs,
a sharp string of ghastly stars waiting to drop
because even before this lesson, they should have listened,
before we came to this, they should have heard,
they should have known what would be created.

I speak english in this tale, but they don’t listen,
so I speak in fireballs, the language they hear,
the nightmare they dropped, the monster they created.

The Crossroads of Convenience Stores

2011

more on:

Douglas Kearney

by Douglas Kearney and Bao Phi (listen and download here)

DK BOTH BP
We meet at the crossroads
of convenience stores
in a galaxy of bulletproof glass,
chanting a battle hymn
of broken English.
We remix dynamite
and bullwhips. Pull sips from tears
in the crow’s feet scratching
black eyes.
I said:
we remix
dynamite
and bullwhips
into poetry tattooed on bamboo splinters
and the walls of Angel Island.
Tattooed on tattered bandanas
and black skies.
We are flaring signatures of arms and legs
names flying over Chinatown gutters.
Urban hurricanes sweeping streets
like Jet Li to a chophop beat.
Scissor kick heaven and called craps
cuz we cipher in the parking lots of 7-11s.
We are
Shaolin dancers hi-yaahhing
to breakbeats to find the Dao of Hip Hop,
no poo and motherfuck you
if you see me as a destination.
Steel spine of America massaged
by yellow fingers in the west.
The iron backbone stroked
by black hands in the east.
Call and response
of hammers and sparks.
The breakbeats of broken
backs bent under the glinting eyes
of lamb-skinned jackals
extracting silk and cotton from our bowels
with pitchforks—
replacing them with opium and crack.
But we drank the pot liquor of stewing rage,
quickened with the ginseng stored
in the hearts of ancestors,
and carved poems into the forehead of your masks.
We carved poems into your clubs
embossed on our skulls.
We carved poems into the throats of your children.
We carved poems into the margins
of your history book.
Carved poems into our own eyes
so we could see ourselves without you.
We carved ourselves homunculi
cuz for too long you sold Kung Fu-grip,
big-lipped representations
of big dick rapists
and dickless yellow peril,
sterile, sexless castrations.
We meet at the crossroads
of convenience stores
in a galaxy of bulletproof glass,
chanting a battle hymn
of broken English.
We meet as Afro/Oriental
as fools flap they dentals
but lack fundamentals.
We knock out occidentals
cuz we re/call the call of hums
and ancient names shouted and sung
over indigo and sugarcane.
We flying first class
in boom boxes
jostling for space
on white train dreamscapes.
We paint wildstyles on rice paddies
and Caddy chassis.
Hurl our tongues like meteors.
Intersect at Kung Fu and Boom Bap.
We jungle babies in eagle talons
pop-locking free.
And at night, we reach for black hair
and love our people with every ounce of venom
we can pour into our pens.
We be the bumpin bibimbob
b-boy Buddhists be-bopping
butterscotched colored hip hop;
best believe I don’t need weed
cuz I was born chinky eyed.
Get it? We are the veins on subway trains.
The new urban version of the transcontinental. East or west?
Fuck that, we center our tongues,
empty full lungs. We the Bruce Lee,
the Muhammad Ali of the Boxer Rebellion
of the Black Panthers holding scripts inside fists
and knocking fits of fury,
our throats coated by exploitation
and our feet are calloused by stories.
We are taking back the beat.
We are taking back the tattoos.
We are taking back our dicks.
We are tuning out the hype
by turning up the breath of ancestors
and turning back pages of yesteryears.
We meet at the crossroads
of convenience stores
in a galaxy of bulletproof glass,
chanting a battle hymn
of broken English.
I believed the megaphones.
I called with bullets and bricks.
I believed the telecasts radiating
storefront stick-ups and illiteracy.
My hatred strafing
through palm fronds and storefronts.
My hatred cutting like ice
with cold stares and misdirected fists
burning “justice” from yellow husks like huts. Burning love from the pale remains
of honorary whiteness. Pale fires
of Lost Angels, yellow black browns
paint red while the guards in blue
stand watch by the whites.
The resolution will not be televised,
the resolution will not be televised.
Who will be left alive
to cut the bodies from the tree limbs,
free them from the rubble,
raise them from police backseats,
release them from beneath the wheels of jeeps.
Who will bring them back
with voodoo and reincarnation?
Bring back for get-back?
Bring back for get-back. Never forget that.
Do we need to get martyred before we start this?
Do we need
to get martyred before we start this?
Do we need to get martyred
before we start this?
Do we need to get martyred
before we start this?
Do we need to get martyred
before we start this?

Last Name First

2005

more on:

Chamindika Wanduragala, chapbook, Douglas Kearney

Last Name First (chapbook cover)

Cover art by Chamindika Wanduragala

Poems by Thien-Bao Phi
chapbook designed by Douglas Kearney
with artwork by Chamindika Wanduragala

The Way We Pay

2004

more on:

chapbook, David Huang, Douglas Kearney, Sylvia Quan La, Wing Young Huie

The Way We Pay (chapbook cover)

Cover art by Sylvia Quan La

Poetry by Thien-Bao Phi
limited edition of 50
chapbook designed by Douglas Kearney
with artwork by Sylvia Quan La

Includes:

  1. FOBulous
  2. Giving My Neighbor a Ride to Her Job
  3. Race
  4. Musings on How I Regard Asian American Literature
  5. Riot
  6. Bread and Glass
  7. Miss Saigon
  8. Every Day People
  9. No Offense
  10. Mass Transit
  11. For Colored Boys in Danger of Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome and All the Rest For Whom Considering Suicide is Not Enuf
  12. Goodbye
  13. Worth Singing

Refugeography

2002

more on:

Chamindika Wanduragala, Cisneros, Denizen Kane, Douglas Kearney, Emily Chang, Juliana Hu Pegues, Larry Lucio Jr., Magnetic North, Refugeography, Seng Chen, Theresa Vu

Refugeography (cover)
Written and performed by Bao Phi
Recorded and mixed by Larry Lucio, Jr.
Artwork by Chamindika Wanduragala.

Currently only available for digital download.

TRACKLISTING

  1. You Bring Out… (inspired by Sandra Cisneros, “You Bring Out the Mexican In Me”)
  2. Intro (written and performed by Theresa Vu of Magnetic North)
  3. Today (ft. vocals by Emily Chang and Seng Chen on bass)
  4. Reverse Racism
  5. For Colored Boys (ft. Juliana Hu Pegues)
  6. WWOK
  7. Crossroads of Convenience Stores (ft. Douglas Kearney)
  8. Brother (ft. Denizen Kane)
  9. Missed Sigh Gone
  10. Asian Men – On a Roll!
  11. Where You At? (ft. Emily Chang)
  12. Yellowbrown Babies for the Revolution (ft. Denizen Kane on guitar and Seng Chen on bass)

Surviving the Translation (chapbook)

2002

more on:

chapbook, Douglas Kearney, Phloe

Surviving the Translation (chapbook)

Cover art by Phloe

Collected Poems from 1993 – 2002
chapbook designed by Douglas Kearney
with artwork by Phloe

Includes:

  1. Space
  2. Dear Senator McCain
  3. Poetry Never Leads to Love
  4. Surviving the Translation
  5. Light
  6. Bright Lady
  7. Reverse Racist
  8. Called
  9. Missed Sigh Gone
  10. What’s an Asian Man?
  11. You Bring Out the Vietnamese in Me
  12. Dandelions
  13. Birthday
  14. Yellowbrown Babies for the Revolution
  15. For Us

BAO PHI

Vietnamese American spoken word artist,
writer and community activist

RSS Bao at the ★Trib

  • Cambodian Son: Minneapolis Screening and Q & A with director Masahiro Sugano on April 15
  • Orbit: Remembering Brandon Lacy Campos
  • Letters Home: the shootings at the Sikh Gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin
  • Lin. Sanity.
  • Vincent Chin: 30 Years Later
  • HaiCOUP: a fieldguide in guerrilla (po)ethic
  • Doggone

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