In a collection that is deeply occupied with the notion of voice and who gets to have it, Shin Yu Pai's NO NEUTRAL reaches toward a more authentic and natural voice to represent the poet's perspective in all its range and concerns.
A collection deeply occupied with the notion of voice and who gets to have one, NO NEUTRAL presents poet Shin Yu Pai's perspective in its expansive range of concerns, reaching toward what's most authentic. Pai dives into explorations of place and their histories: from Port Townsend and the Inland Empire of Southern California to the deserts surrounding Palm Springs, the poet contemplates one's identity within these shifting spaces. Throughout the book, Pai weaves poems about social unrest, conflict, solidarities, friendships, the mindset of an activist, and her experiences as a woman, mother, artist, and daughter. She continues her lifelong engagement with the visual arts with poems inspired by site-specific works of Rana Begum, Andy Goldsworthy, Maya Lin, Richard Turner, and Tyre Nichols, while also turning her attention to the art of Degenerate Art Ensemble.
"Shin Yu Pai's NO NEUTRAL sings through the quiet tangle of solidarity and memory-work. Exploring interrelated griefscapes of military monuments in the Pacific Northwest, widespread and continuous anti-Asian violence, and our shared vulnerabilities during the coronavirus pandemic, these poems--a sonic and imagistic counter-architecture--make possible new forms of mourning and witness. These narratives and lyrics of the everyday, at times necessarily biting and sardonic, self-reflexive, meditative, and deeply researched, pursue the wild motherly interior as an Asian American feminist politics and poetics of refusal, resistance, and reckoning."--Jason Magabo Perez, San Diego Poet Laureate
"Whether confronting anti-Asian violence, the almost forgotten histories of minoritized peoples, or the delicate fall of incense ash, Shin Yu Pai listens and hears the world around us and transforms those moments into shimmering poems that stay with us long after first reading."--Dennis Maloney, poet and publisher of White Pine Press
Poetry. Asian & Asian American Studies.
