#kenji liu

People in soap operas always have more than enough candles. For dramatic dinners. For lovemaking. For dramatic post-lovemaking spats, tiffs, perhaps even squabbles. It’s possible. All thanks to candles. I would like to have a more candlelit life, but unscented, s’il vous plait.

Two new poems up at Poemeleon, as part of a special Asian Pacific American issue! So many thanks to Kenji Liu and Angela Peñaredondo for guest-editing, for gathering our voices, for examining what goes into a particular gathering, a particular constellation of language at this historical moment. Glad for your political insights, your necessary refusals. 

And glad to share space with writers who challenge power and transform imagination: Ching-In Chen, Todd Kaneko, Michelle Lin, Rajiv Mohabir, Mg Roberts, Melissa Rae Sipin-Gabon, Timothy Yu, & others. 

at The Poet’s Playlist

Kenji C. Liu on

MAP OF AN ONION (Inlandia Institute, 2016)

 Map of an Onion is an altar to my family, and a poetry collection about ephemeral spaces that have real physical and psychic effects on individuals. Most evident in the book are national, postcolonial, and corporeal spaces, their intersections, and our migrations between them. The intertwined histories of Taiwan, Japan, and the United States are present throughout, not to mention references to new wave, disco, and science fiction. Map of an Onion is also a visual and physical object. The size, design, and layout from cover to cover is very important to the experience of this collection.

  “I Melt With You” by Modern English

In my collection, the poem “Peach Boy in Kyoto” is a kind of homage to this song, which represents a good portion of my teen years. One summer we visited my grandmother in Japan, and I listened to Modern English’s album After the Snow in my Walkman over and over while hanging out in the small, enclosed yard. Of course, this hit song is the album’s jewel, and as a teen it swept me away with its vision of stopping the world for love, and with (what seemed to me to be) its sci-fi reference to saving the human race.

 “Waiting for the Night to Fall” by Depeche Mode

Another classic from my teenage years. I still regret missing out on the Violator tour. In a way, Violator was one of my gateway drugs into electronic dance music. But before that, this song and its video gave me the space to favor nighttime over daytime—in a sad, black hair over the eyes kind of way. Its transition between A minor and D sharp provide a kind of rush that verges on resolution, but of course it doesn’t, because it’s Depeche Mode. Lead singer David Gahan’s baritone was one of the only pop music voices I could really sing along with, since most male pop singers are tenors.

 “Televised Green Smoke” by Carl Craig

Detroit techno brilliantly translates a certain post-industrial, working-class, urban African American history and aesthetic that many people in the US are unaware of. It often spills into Afrofuturism. As one of the genre’s original second-generation innovators, there is a stark urban beauty in Carl Craig’s music that emphasizes the machine—the movements of robots and cars and transit, and also asphalt, metal, concrete. “Televised Green Smoke” stands out as a personal classic. Its alien sweeps and stabs, circular acid and strings, and deep bass foundation has always moved me. A perfect combination of stillness and journey, like a moment of reflection in the middle of a busy city.

 “Fear of the South” by Tin Hat Trio

If I had to pick my favorite song of all time, this would be in the running. Tin Hat Trio (now Tin Hat)’s work is eclectic, moody, and intelligent, making use of unusual keys and time signatures drawn from many influences, including European folk. In addition, the musicians are absolutely at the top of their game. The pentatonic and diatonic solos over 5/4 time in “Fear of the South” are beautiful and masterful. As a classically-trained violinist, I have a lot of appreciation for Tin Trio’s musicianship.

 “Sigh by the Sea” by Bitter Party

I first heard Bitter Party at Tuesday Night Project in Little Tokyo (Los Angeles). They call their style “ghost pop,” and it’s a very appropriate description. Drawing on WWII and post-war era music from Asia, their music is haunting and melancholy. When looking for music to accompany the video for my poem “Search History,” Bitter Party’s “Sigh by the Sea” immediately stood out. Luckily, they were into it! Please buy their LP Ghost Pop.