The author of the essay collection Brown Album on living in New York and searching for identity in exile during the worldwide pandemic.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in conversation with Cyrée Jarelle Johnson
the hot air rising from the cooker / has tightening effect on your lovehole
In English, you choose to be gender-neutral. In Indonesian, it’s a gift from the language.
A day without a hate crime, Asian-American activism in 1970s Los Angeles, worlds made possible by the NEA
Sustainable eating can often feel like the privilege of a well-heeled elite, but how do the appetites and labor of New York City’s immigrant communities fit into the picture?
‘I wonder what happens to skin when it is robbed of touch. Does it break? Does it know to breathe? Does it forget the painful sweetness of a tickle?’
‘They love long hours of blackout. / They love this snuffed out match / of a little city. To the dust that separates // stained lace. To the poor / thrum of humidity.’
‘On the radio they are playing a record that is skipping. A deep-voiced woman joyfully sings, “My life has just begun– gun– gun–”’
“in the jungle they hide until / the seekers, bearing lime leaves jail / them in the silver night.”
Be calm. Soon / we will bear sentimentality, scent / what is lost in these cells with carrion, / asphodel, turpentine, forsythia / blooming somewhere in the dark.
A conversation on Marylyn Tan’s debut poetry collection, Gaze Back, plus a brief interview with the author
Not an assumption; not a name you learned to remember, not a fleshy shape or a face you already recognized
Animals are strangely perceptive—in their instinct to survive, they find a home
‘He lingered on the edges of my social field of view, here in the basement lab where it was hot and loud’
‘And they were a solemn people: naming / the world, mapping it out, arguing about what it meant. Clandestine as / husbands’
“ALL WILL COME BACK FROM ROOTS – NOTHING KILLS BLACKBERRY – BUT WHERE ARE ALL THE SPARROWS”
‘The first boy that I dated weighted down his coif / with so much hair gel that the crest atop his pate / was hard as horses’ teeth’
‘The bags of paper are bodies, sitting on ledges, tucking their legs into themselves, folding smaller, hugging themselves for comfort.’
Never / reaching orgasm, / the colony names its price and I, / hot cent of foreign cash, / sell it slant. Daughters / say it with ozone: my sex is a metaphor / for too much / good luck.
Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha in conversation with Cyrée Jarelle Johnson
A conversation on Marylyn Tan’s debut poetry collection, Gaze Back, plus a brief interview with the author
the hot air rising from the cooker / has tightening effect on your lovehole
Not an assumption; not a name you learned to remember, not a fleshy shape or a face you already recognized
In English, you choose to be gender-neutral. In Indonesian, it’s a gift from the language.
Animals are strangely perceptive—in their instinct to survive, they find a home
A day without a hate crime, Asian-American activism in 1970s Los Angeles, worlds made possible by the NEA
‘He lingered on the edges of my social field of view, here in the basement lab where it was hot and loud’
Sustainable eating can often feel like the privilege of a well-heeled elite, but how do the appetites and labor of New York City’s immigrant communities fit into the picture?
‘And they were a solemn people: naming / the world, mapping it out, arguing about what it meant. Clandestine as / husbands’
‘I wonder what happens to skin when it is robbed of touch. Does it break? Does it know to breathe? Does it forget the painful sweetness of a tickle?’
“ALL WILL COME BACK FROM ROOTS – NOTHING KILLS BLACKBERRY – BUT WHERE ARE ALL THE SPARROWS”
‘They love long hours of blackout. / They love this snuffed out match / of a little city. To the dust that separates // stained lace. To the poor / thrum of humidity.’
‘The first boy that I dated weighted down his coif / with so much hair gel that the crest atop his pate / was hard as horses’ teeth’
‘On the radio they are playing a record that is skipping. A deep-voiced woman joyfully sings, “My life has just begun– gun– gun–”’
‘The bags of paper are bodies, sitting on ledges, tucking their legs into themselves, folding smaller, hugging themselves for comfort.’
“in the jungle they hide until / the seekers, bearing lime leaves jail / them in the silver night.”
Never / reaching orgasm, / the colony names its price and I, / hot cent of foreign cash, / sell it slant. Daughters / say it with ozone: my sex is a metaphor / for too much / good luck.
Be calm. Soon / we will bear sentimentality, scent / what is lost in these cells with carrion, / asphodel, turpentine, forsythia / blooming somewhere in the dark.