From From Audiobook

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2023 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FOR POETRY

Where are you from Nowhere are you from from Its a question every Asian American gets asked as part of an incessant chorus saying youll never belong here youre a perpetual foreigner youll always be seen as an alien an object or a threat

Monica Youns From From brilliantly evokes the conflicted consciousness of deracination If you have no core of authenticity no experience of your socalled homeland how do you piece together an Asian American identity out of Westerners ideas about Asians Your sense of yourself is part stereotype part aspiration part guilt In this dazzling collection one sequence deconstructs the sounds and letters of the word deracinations to create a sonic landscape of micro and macroaggressions assimilation and selfdoubt A kaleidoscopic personal essay explores the racial positioning of Asian Americans and the epidemic of antiAsian hate Several poems titled Study of Two Figures anatomize and dissect the Asian other Midas the striving nouveauriche father Dr Seuss and the imaginary daughter ChrysanthemumPearl he invented while authoring his antiJapanese propaganda campaign Pasipha mother of the minotaur and Sado the eighteenthcentury Korean prince both condemned to containers allegorical and actual