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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781775589754 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Auckland University Press |
| Publication date: | 03/08/2018 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 92 |
| File size: | 296 KB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Intro
Shut the fuck up.
Can you hear that?
Listen.
Wolves!
Wolves with roses in their teeth.
Lightning crashes — their bright eyes lock on — very, very frightening indeed.
The wolves are closing in on the ballroom while the band members look out and brace themselves for the conflict to come. Shit just got real.
1 and 2 and 3 and —
Belated backstory
There were animals. They came to me with their bloodstained murmurs
choking the night, the weight of misery a gloom in their throats. Beasts of all
shapes and mythologies scratching at the soil around my grave, each one
driven by its own unique hunger but all intent on writing my end.
I can almost run my fingers through the sun-streaked strands of those days
when I was nothing but a silhouette disappearing into fog — just a sketch.
I could step into a crowd and never resurface. No one would suspect a thing.
Heavy lifting
Once, I climbed a tree too tall for climbing and threw my voice out into the world. I screamed.
Punctum
This is my blood oath with myself: the only dead Chinese person I'll write about from now on is me. I know I know
it'll do me no good to drag my body through the town square to prove that it wasn't me
who set fire to the school to avoid my maths exam who shot the prince in the bushes behind the barn where the queers get together to talk
nor was it me who leaked those emails about which All Black the Prime Minister would bottom for. But
I hope my name and track record with unsolved crimes will finally be cleared so I can get on with my new life as a Chinese girl
behind the counter being bullied into saying 'fried rice'
for saddling me with a mediocre work ethic which has kept me here for five years despite knowing there is no career progression unless I
marry my boss's son, who is studying to be a capitalist like all good Chinese boys. He's got a small dick and no sense of rhythm but our children
will likely be pleasant-looking enough to be background extras in a re-enactment of Helen Clark's apology for the poll tax — that is,
if their father allows them to have the arts in their lives.
the unapologetic sex addict still burying porn in his parents' backyard
the pregnant teen goth who must decide whether to keep her subscription to Evanescence's monthly fan club newsletter
the paraplegic hooker with a heart of gold made from melted-down Oscars
the proud gay man pretending to be straight to be made partner at his father's law firm in 1940s Austria
the racist spiritual healer about to inherit a hand sanitiser empire in Birmingham, Alabama.
But in all likelihood my children will have only moderately humble acting careers playing accountants, taxi drivers and restaurateurs
to supplement their primary incomes as accountants, taxi drivers and restaurateurs.
whether I pushed them hard enough to never settle for being the token Asian in a crowd scene or the Asian acquaintance in an ethnically diverse television series
set in New York City, who is only mentioned and never seen unless you pause at 12.29 of season 4 episode 6
there, that's my youngest standing in the back row of a wedding group shot. Can you see her?
Tonight, Matthew
Thirty-something and — shit! —
If I don't have a name for it, how do I recover?
But then I see the riverbank sluiced in red from the sacrificial high season.
I can't get on board with that, no siree!
Thirty-something and —
I'm going to fuck it up. (Don't fuck it up.)
I guess I'll sit here silently in the name of art until someone dares
Tonight, Matthew, I'm going to disappear into the dark side
Chris Tse and His Imaginary Band
We were brighter when the world didn't know about us or our rock 'n' roll dreams. Now we dress in black, but we're not depressed —
Artist's impression of the poet is not drawn to scale
This is the poet behind the mask
Many are surprised that the poet is shorter in real life, yet is still as susceptible to mythology as the rest of us.
* * *
There are points in the poet's life that cannot be accurately rendered by any artist or the poet himself.
Well, you're obviously a crap painter,
What stress, if any, to place on the young poet's arm caught in a clothing recycling bin or his hand thrown through the glass of his front door?
* * *
This is the poet masquerading
He doesn't bother looking out
Like a queen
I should be king I should be torn from your stuffy pages
I should be monster
I should be tempted I should be blackened, cum-stained and bleeding from love
I should be everything
I should be wanton I should be leaning over ledges with my fortune
I should be happy
I should be cruel I should be crime scene bathed in unforgiving flash
I should be looking
I should be mirrored I should be blanketed in folds of rolling silk
I should be child
I should be ready I should be volume up on open roads
I should be paper
I should be visible I should be on every street corner as is
I should be bold
I should be spill I should be more than enough
I should be queen
I was a self-loathing poet
There's an app that lets you see other poets in your vicinity. Some of these poets are 'non-scene' and promise discretion (they usually have headless author photos, or blurry, suggestive close-ups of their pens), while others proudly state that they are published and gladly share their literary CV. Some even write non-fiction! There are those who will chat only if you've published a minimum of eight poems, whereas others are open to accommodating poetry-curious prose writers. The profiles that state 'I'm not racist, but no haikus' really irk me and leave me feeling inadequate. Once, the app said there was a poet about five metres away from me. I didn't instigate a chat session, but I'm sure I heard faint tapping coming from the other side of my bedroom wall.
* * *
I spy poets in the streets — some of them I recognise from the app. They clutch their open Moleskines, pens poised with an air of intent: I am capturing this moment. Their choice of writing instrument is a code, signalling formal preferences (for example, biros for free verse; fountain pens for sonnets; blood-tipped quills for responses to dead white male poets). Sometimes our eyes will catch and we exchange a loaded look before pulling away. Although seeing another poet in the flesh — sharing that illicit gaze — moves me to recognise I'm not alone, I'm simultaneously repulsed. And yet I will spend many hours after these encounters aggressively dissecting those shy, flirty holds. As a young man this wreaks havoc on my journey to self-discovery. Why can't I write prose like everybody else? Will I ever afford avocado on toast? How am I so different?
* * *
A few years ago I became involved with another poet. He was a friend of a friend who asked for my number after spotting me loitering at the back of a book launch. He'd been published in Deep Odes and Pun Ghazellers and had strong views about publishing equality for poets. We spent hours sharing lines from our favourite collections and he impressed me with gossip about acclaimed novelists who were secretly writing poems on the down-low. About two weeks after we met he wrote a sonnet about me. My first instinct was to bolt, but I didn't, telling myself to stick with what was promising to be a good thing. Besides, the sonnet was really quite lovely and no one had ever shown such an interest in my writing before. Then he started talking about finding a writing studio together and introducing me to his writing group. I went into panic mode again. He said I needed to tell my parents I was a poet. (I was pretty sure my mother already suspected, as mothers tend to. She would ask me whether I was reading any good novels and I would respond with something vague, like, 'I don't have time to read novels at the moment'.) It turns out this was the make-or-break, so I cut all contact with him. I simply stopped calling him, and he gave up attempting to reach me after a week. I'm not proud of how I called it off. Perhaps if I had been braver back then — ready to admit to myself that I was a poet — things might be different now.
* * *
Older poets take a liking to me, but I politely decline their advances. One invited me to accompany him on a trip to a literary festival in Sydney, which was tempting (a free trip to Sydney!), but I suspected he wanted something in return like feedback on the third draft of his new collection or someone to create a master index of his first lines. Many of these poets assume that all young Asian poets want an older European poet to shower them with attention and constructive criticism. I've had enough of these encounters to realise that many of them are in shaky relationships with their publishers and never got the chance to experiment with poetry in their youth. It's hard to explain to them that their persistence, at first flattering, creeps me out. 'Know your niche', a poet friend says to me, 'and play the field that way'. But I just want to find a poet my age, preferably one open to using unconventional line breaks. I've come to realise that the poets I lust after in my head tend to be, as they say, out of my league.
* * *
There's no such thing as the perfect time or the best way to tell loved ones about your poetic inclinations. You need to muster up every ounce of courage in your being and just say it: I'm a poet. You could say 'I write poetry', but there's something non-committal about that phrasing, like you only dabble now and then and would prefer not to attach labels to your preferences. Prepare yourself for a full spectrum of emotional reactions, from 'You're still the same person to me' to 'I can't be friends with a poet'. And it's true — some people do think poets lead immoral lifestyles, and that enjambment is the slippery slope to the decay of civilisation. The night I finally told my parents, I had returned home from a book launch, tears streaming down my face, my body attempting to reject the awful chardonnay I'd been drinking all night. At the launch, I was overcome with a sudden need to come clean, no longer willing to hide my drafts in shoeboxes under my bed or a labyrinthine folder structure on our shared family computer that my brother later told me wasn't as effective as I thought it was. Perhaps it was the emotionally charged poem the poet had read about her relationship with her parents, or maybe I just can't process white wine like I used to. Whatever the catalyst, it all came out: the creative writing workshop I'd secretly taken at university; the poems I'd published in a handful of journals; and the poet who had urged me to tell them everything. My mother sobbed, her body slumped over our dining table. 'What will other people think? Our son — a poet! You won't be able to make a living!'. My father kept his distance, not knowing what to say or do. I can't imagine he's personally known any poets in his lifetime, nor had friends whose children turned out to be poets.
* * *
I'm ready to settle down with another poet, one who is also over getting drunk at readings and launches, and waking up next to a different stranger every morning during Writers Week. I see poet couples sharing copies of The World Doesn't End on park benches and I think to myself: that's what I want. Someone who helps me with my titles and tells me when I have too much white space showing, a voice of reason who lets me know when what I've written has gone too far, or hasn't gone far enough. Someone who makes me want to be a better poet — who won't be jealous that none of these poems are about them.
Selfie with landscape
Let's unpick what you think you know about me — what I've revealed, what I've left at the door of my favourite wolf, to force eye contact the next time we pass in the street. These stories all had emergency exits,
MASC
Another poet's book is launched into the world as being 'masculine' — Coltrane, oil change, accidentally brushing a breast.
This book — Madonna, selfies, inability to grow a beard.
* * *
I launch myself into dating apps
I have a type, but I am not that type
so when my eye is caught I know I'm looking for edges on a white wall like placing my optimism
And still I wish, and still I play,
But I am very many
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "He's so MASC"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Chris Tse.
Excerpted by permission of Auckland University Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Intro,
Belated backstory,
Heavy lifting,
Punctum,
Tonight, Matthew,
Chris Tse and His Imaginary Band,
Artist's impression of the poet is not drawn to scale,
Like a queen,
I was a self-loathing poet,
Selfie with landscape,
MASC,
This house,
Summer nights with knife fights,
Performance — Part 2,
The compulsive liar's autobiography,
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!,
Thunder's soul clap,
I.R.L.,
The saddest song in the world,
Present tension,
New mythology,
I want things that won't make me happy,
Lupine,
I made it through the wilderness,
Fast track,
Desire,
Boy meets wolf,
Choose your own adventure,
A star like no other,
Distance getting close,
Release,
Astronaut,
The opposite of music,
MacGuffin,
Still — the boys,
Notes for Taylor Swift, should she ever write a song about me,
Sweetheartbreaker,
Next year's colours,
Spot the difference — Answers,
Crying at the disco,
Ends, actually,
Spanner — A toast,
Wolf spirit — Fade out,
Notes and acknowledgements,